Perdido Street School

The NY Post says this scene is right out of The Sopranos, but I see Goodfellas as the better comparison:

ALBANY — Like a scene from “The Sopranos,” a political operative busted by the state Attorney General’s Office held secret meetings at his elderly mother’s house and had a campaign worker paid with grocery bags stuffed with cash, a former upstate prosecutor told The Post.

Steve Pigeon — a Buffalo-area Democrat — had a waterfront condo but the neighborhood was also home to a number of judges, so he conducted his shady business at his mom’s, according to former Erie County prosecutor Mark Sacha.

“It was like ‘The Sopranos.’ They wanted to hire this phone-bank guy to make calls for a candidate,” Sacha recalled.

“So, they go to his elderly mother’s house in a quiet suburban neighborhood in the middle of the night. This is where they agree to hire the phone-bank guy for $20,000, but the campaign account is drained so they arrange to deliver cash in grocery bags,” said Sacha, a former assistant DA who investigated Pigeon three years ago and who is now running for district attorney.

...

Twice, the operative was paid $10,000 stuffed in Tops Supermarket grocery bags, Sacha said.
“I’ll never forget this phone-bank guy telling me about meeting the donor [a Pigeon crony] having this ‘hoochie coochie’ girl with him,” Sacha said.

“I see no difference between these guys and organized crime, except these guys are corrupting elections,” Sacha said. 

Sources say Pigeon helped Cuomo navigate politics in Western New York and backed the governor’s unsuccessful first bid for the seat he now holds.

Through a spokesman, Cuomo denied Pigeon is a close ally.

Reminds me a little of this scene in Goodfellas where the boys make a late night trip to Tommy's mother's house (sans the not-quite dead Billy Bats, of course):

As I posted earlier this week, NJ.com reported that Governor Christie and Governor Cuomo met at a restaurant in Carlstadt, NJ for lunch.

Christie's spokesperson admitted to the meeting though would not say what was discussed there.

Cuomo's spokesperson didn't return calls.

But given how the Port Authority reform bill sits on Cuomo's desk and must be either signed or vetoed by tomorrow night, you can bet the words "Port" and "Authority" came up a couple of times at the Cuomo/Christie meeting.

See, neither Cuomo nor Christie really want Port Authority reform (despite all four legislative houses in both states voting unanimously for the PA reform bill - 612-0!) and they're looking for a politically astute way to kill it.

Why don't either of these governors wants PA reform?

Well, that's an easy question to answer.

It's because the Port Authority is a cesspool of patronage, criminality and corruption - just the kind of place guys like Cuomo and Christie like.

Here's The Nation investigating some of that cesspool back in April:

When, in 2011, Governor Chris Christie did an end-run around Port Authority rules to siphon $1.8 billion in PA funds for pet projects in New Jersey, the New York side of the PA, including Governor Andrew Cuomo, went along. Why? As Christie Watch has learned, the New York PA officials had their own concerns—namely, getting the new World Trade Center built—and, worse, in the words of one former PA official, they didn’t want “to go to war with Christie.”

Read the rest - what you learn is that Christie killed a trans-Hudson tunnel New Jersey desperately needed so that he could steal the money from that project and use it for projects the bankrupt state transportation kitty was supposed to fund.

Two New York governors, Paterson and Cuomo, knew what Christie was doing was wrong, but neither wanted to do anything about it because they needed Christie to continue signing off on the insane gobs of money the World Trade Center complex was costing - especially the over-budget PATH transportation center.

The takeaway from this mess:

 So with New York officials acquiescent, and the New Jersey governor determined to grab the ARC money to avoid tax increases, the use of the money for the Pulaski Skyway and related building went through. “The governors of either side don’t seem to have any qualms about committing Port Authority funds for their own purposes even though they may be non-Port Authority related,” says David Gallagher, a former executive at the PA. “But it’s not a regional piggy bank. It was intended to provide the transportation, business and commercial infrastructure to make the bi-state region grow.”

The Nation also reported the patronage that goes on at the PA, particularly from Christie's side of the Hudson:

Since 2010, Christie has installed dozens of cronies and favored operatives, including very high-level Christie insiders: David Samson, a real estate attorney, as chairman; Bill Baroni, now fired, a long-time Christie ally who was the PA’s deputy executive director; Philip Kwon, another key Christie ally is the agency’s deputy general counsel; and, of course, David Wildstein, Christie’s non-friend from Livingston High School, who was “director of interstate capital projects,” whatever that is.

Thanks to Bridgegate, most of those names are now well known not only in New Jersey but nationwide. What’s less well known is how Christie has used the PA to build his political machine, using its power to curry favor with a wide range of Democratic mayors, county officials and party bosses. In towns such as Hoboken, Harrison and many others, the PA is involved in or controls important development initiatives and transportation projects that are often entangled with cronies of the New Jersey governor and his friends.

Read the rest of that piece - some of what you'll learn is that Christie and Cuomo hit people with "massive" PA toll and PATH fare increases, then Christie stole the money for his own purposes:

The New Jersey legislative investigation may also finally bring to light the political dealings behind the enormous toll hikes the Port Authority enacted in September 2011, when fares on bridges and tunnels rose from $8 to $13. (They’re scheduled to go to $15 by 2015.) Usually such increases would only follow extensive public debate and discussions; instead, they were rushed through after only a single day of hearings that summer.

...

Linked to all this—and the committee is seeking documents on this, too—is Christie’s decision in 2010 to cancel the tunnel project. By then, the various agencies involved had already spent over $400 million on engineering property acquisition, construction and other expenses. New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Jon Corzine had broken ground on the project just before his defeat by Christie in 2009.

But a few months after Christie appointed Baroni to the PA, he and David Wildstein, who is at the heart of Bridgegate, looked for other ways to use the $2 billion in PA funds slated for the tunnel. Here’s what they came up with: to help Christie keep his promise not to raise gasoline taxes, they decided to use it to resupply the exhausted Transportation Trust Fund, which is usually replenished through the gas tax at the pump. In addition, they sloshed some of it to build a rail station in a town whose Democratic mayor later supported Christie for re-election. And it went for a new bridge project that won him the support of the powerful International Laborers Union at his first re-election campaign rally a year later.

The Nation also notes how the PA became a patronage mill for Christie:

The Bergen Record investigated who they were:

One was a gourmet food broker who landed work as an $85,000-a-year financial analyst at the Port Authority. Another got a $90,000 job to check maintenance contracts. An author and actor was hired as the employment publications editor—a three-day-a-week gig that pays $50,000 and provides full benefits.

In an interview with The Nation, Jameson W. Doig, a professor at Dartmouth and author of Empire on the Hudson, a definitive history of the Port Authority, said that Christie’s appointments “show patronage at work.” He added: “Christie was willing to use his power as governor to insist that the Port Authority hire his friends and party workers, even if they were not qualified for the work they were expected to do.”

This is mob-like stuff Christie's engaging in  - the creative accounting that allows him to steal millions meant for public projects and use the money for his own ends, the "no-show jobs" for his pals and cronies, the use of the PA to punish enemies (like when members of the Christie administration had traffic on the George Washington Bridge shut down for three days as political payback.)

You can see why Christie wouldn't want any of this stuff to end and why Cuomo might want to assuage his political pal until the WTC complex is finally completed and he doesn't have to worry about getting stuck with the bill.

And so, Cuomo and Christie met this week to talk over their Port Authority "problem" and figure out solutions.

Neither man completely trusts the other, so they picked a public place both know (which is why they were noticed by the press.)

Perdido Street School blog, via a commenter at NJ.com named Neilhow, has gotten exclusive video of Christie and Cuomo colluding over the Port Authority.

We have forwarded this tape to the proper authorities as well, the respective US attorneys offices in NY and NJ who are investigating these two criminals, but don't hold your breath that anything will happen to either of these two corrupt public officials.

About the best we can hope for is that these guys turn on each other and go to war publicly - something that could happen if this video of their lunch together means anything at all.

In any case, enjoy the video:

Andrew Cuomo experienced many personal slights during the election season.

First he had to grovel for the Working Families Party nomination.

Then he had to face a primary challenge by Fordham Professor Zephyr Teachout that saw her win 34% of the vote on Primary Day.

He beat his GOP opponent by 13 points on Election Day - but only after outraising said opponent 9 to 1 in campaign funds (Cuomo raised $45 million for the race, his opponent Rob Astorino raised $5 million.)

In addition, Astorino got no help from the Republican Governors Association in the race and little-to-no help from the state GOP, which seemed to have a secret pact with Governor Cuomo that they wouldn't help Astorino out if he wouldn't help Democrats win back the State Senate.

In the end, Cuomo won re-election, but with vote turnout at historic lows and with the lowest vote totals of any gubernatorial candidate in New York State since FDR in 1930 - not exactly a victory to crow over.

Since his re-election, Cuomo has stayed out of the public eye, as reported by Ross Barkan at the Observer:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has not held a single public event since winning re-election on November 4, returning to a schedule Albany watchers know well–minimizing opportunities for the press to scrutinize him and ensuring that the public is unaware of exactly where their governor is going or what he is doing.

For a governor who avoided the campaign trail when he could and openly resents the news media, a 10-day quiet stretch–interspersed with one radio interview–is not much of a surprise.

...

With election season over, it’s now business-as-usual for an executive notoriously indifferent to transparency. While Mayor Bill de Blasio, who at times has had a testy relationship with the media, continues to hold several press briefings a week and distribute a relatively detailed public schedule, Cuomo watchers are left to wonder what “Governor Cuomo is in the New York City area” really means.

...

“It’s not unusual for politicians to pare back especially when they are trying to assess a changed political landscape,” said David Birdsell, the dean of the Baruch College School of Public Affairs. “A lot of people are looking around, trying to figure out what’s going on.”

...


“It’s a missed opportunity to unveil the positive agenda he was criticized for lacking the entire campaign,” argued one Cuomo observer. “It would have been a great chance to begin restoring his favorability rating. Instead, it reinforced his negative perceptions about his obsession with secrecy.”

Mr. Cuomo’s office did not return a request for comment.

People are wondering what Cuomo has been doing since the election.

I'm not wondering what he's doing - I know exactly what he's doing.

@CuomoWatch He's back in his darkened room, planning vengeance against all who slighted him during the election season.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) November 15, 2014

There you have it - Don Andrew M. Cuomo at work post-Election Day, getting ready to settle all Family business.

He's already threatened the public school system with destruction and teachers with sanctions.

You can bet other individuals and groups he feels slighted him are going to be targeted as well.

And if he doesn't like the Mafia reference, too freaking bad.

He ought to stop acting like an organized crime goon surrounded by other organized crime goons:

According to Capital NY's Jimmy Vielkind, mobbed up Bronx politician Jeff Klein, a full-fledged member of the Independent Democratic Conference and an associate member of organized crime, was looking to complete his betrayal of his Democratic colleagues last night:

SAN JUAN, P.R.—Smiling widely and flanked by three of his colleagues in the Independent Democratic Conference, Bronx Senator Jeff Klein offered few clues about how the leadership structure of the State Senate will appear next year.

“The only thing I'm going to say right now is, I want to make sure the Independent Democratic Conference remains a separate conference. I think we proved to be a very effective force in governing—in a coalition government, when there wasn't a coalition government—and, you know, when we move forward I hope that's going to be what happens. If it's with the Democrats, if it's with the Republicans, I think the most important thing is that we have the I.D.C. as a separate conference,” he said Friday night. “I was very proud of the accomplishments that the I.D.C. and the Republicans in our coalition were able to accomplish. I never backed away from that, even in a Democratic primary or a general election, and I hope my Republican colleagues feel the same.”

Klein spoke to reporters at a “real, authentic event” that the I.D.C. sponsored overlooking the pool at the Intercontinental Hotel, the traditional site of the Somos El Futuro conference. About 100 people sipped Barrilito Rum and enjoyed hand-rolled cigars while paying respects to Klein, whose leathery face contrasted with a baby-blue blazer and open-collared checked shirt.

He qualified an initial statement that he was basically committed to conferencing with Republicans, but then threw shade on his fellow Democrats (“I think we have to take a step back, also, and maybe redefine what it means to be a Democrat”) and spoke happily of his time with the G.O.P. (“Elections mean something. We were validated: I won overwhelmingly in my primary.”)

Wow, so much here.

First, check out the photos below and tell me which one is from Godfather II and which one from Independent Democratic Conference Screws Democrats: Part II



Yeah, I know - you're picking the second photo, but that's only because you recognized Al Pacino.

In any case, the same betrayal that occurred down in Cuba in Godfather II is occurring in Puerto Rico this weekend at Independent Democratic Conference Screws Democrats II, with Klein all set to take his IDC traitors (numbering 5 or 6, depending upon if one newly elected member of the State Senate joins the caucus), join with Republicans to again share power in the Senate and help Governor Cuomo ram through as many corporate-friendly policies as possible before 2016 (when Hillary may top the Dem ticket and bring about a Democratic-controlled State Senate.)

GOP leader Dean Skelos has said he is open to talking to Klein about again sharing power in the Senate, even though this time around Republicans hold a slim majority and don't actually need the IDC members to push through legislation.

Still, adding an extra 5 or 6 IDC traitors to the GOP ranks will give Skelos wiggle room that he doesn't have without them, so I suspect we'll again end up with the GOP/IDC power share pushing through Cuomo's corporate-friendly agenda, altough it seems Klein will not wield the same amount of power this time around - there is unlikely to be a "co-presidency" of the Senate between Skelos and Klein.

Vielkinn reports that no matter what Klein and his fellow IDC rats do, some real bona fide Democrats don't sound all that eager to have them around - not after the last IDC betrayal and Klein making noise about the next one:

Despite Klein's declarations that he is open to a re-alliance, Senate Democrats seem uneager about him, whatever he ends up doing and whatever the details are.

“They betrayed us and got us in the back of the bus. We're still in the back of the bus. So this is the second session in which that betrayal is resonating,” said Senator Bill Perkins, a Harlem Democrat. “Whatever they started continues, and ironically, they're getting a taste of it.”

I noted above that Klein is mobbed up.  You may think I am indulging in hyperbole there, but actually I'm not.

The New York Observer reported the following back in the summer:

State Senator Jeff Klein took a $10,000 campaign donation from a mafia-linked realty company–the same firm he rents his district office space from.

The Bronx pol’s July filing shows that the Hutchinson Metro Center, an affiliate of Simone Development–formerly known as Hutch Realty Partners–kicked in the five figures in June. The donation brings the real estate group’s total contribution to Mr. Klein’s operation to a whopping $93,850 since 2006.

One of the Hutchinson Metro Center’s principals, Waters Development, is co-owned by Michael Contillo and Joseph Deglomini. Mr. Contillo and Mr. Deglomini were indicted in the 1990s of tax evasion, racketeering, and conspiring to raid the pension funds of building trade unions with the help of organized crime.

Mr. Klein relocated his official district office to the Hutchinson Center in 2011. A spokeswoman for the senator said that the move was based on the site’s central ___location in the Bronx- and Westchester-spanning district.

“Senator’s Klein’s district office is located in the expansive Hutchinson Metro Center complex, as are a number of city agencies including the New York City Housing Authority the City’s 911 call center, federal agencies and prominent New York institutions,” said spokeswoman Candice Giove. “Senator Klein’s district office lease, like all of Senate leases and lease renewals, was subject to procurement and vendor review by the State Senate and was reviewed and signed off on by both the Attorney General and New York State Comptroller.”

The New York Post has previously noted Mr. Klein had rented space and received donations from the mob-tied firm.

Ms. Giove did not immediately respond to requests for comment specifically about Mr. Klein’s acceptance of campaign funds from a mafia-affiliated organization.

According to the Daily News, Hutch Realty Partners purchased 10 acres of land–immediately adjacent to their center where Mr. Klein’s district office is located–from the state for a total of $5.5 million between 2001 and 2005, when the New York Police Department was interested in constructing a call center on the plot. After an extended fight, the city agreed to buy the land from the company for $46 million.

The senator’s camp said he had no input with the state, the city, or Hutch Realty Partners at any time during the land dealings.

“Senator Klein has absolutely no knowledge of the business matters of the Hutchinson Metro Center. He has never intervened in the Hutchinson Metro Center’s dealings with government, and any assertions to the contrary are wrong and unfair,” said Ms. Giove.

Hutch Realty Partners did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The company has donated to other politicians and political causes, including $9,600 to the Bronx Democratic Party and $5,000 to Democratic Senate Minority Leader–and aspiring majority leader–Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

Mr. Klein leads the Independent Democratic Conference, which formed a power-sharing arrangement with the Senate Republicans in 2012, but agreed to caucus again with the larger Democratic delegation last month.

If Klein ever betrayed his mobster associates the way he has betrayed his fellow Democrats, he'd end up missing until the police found him in the trunk of a burnt car somewhere in the Bronx with six bullet holes in him.

But Jeff Klein knows who he can betray and who he can't - he knows his fellow Dems will probably turn back to him when they need him even though he has already betrayed them once and is looking to do so again.

I certainly don't think Dems ought to treat his betrayal the way the mob would - that would be insane, immoral and criminal.

But I do think there ought to be some political consequences for Klein's sell-out - and the same goes for the rest of the members of the IDC (Avella, Savino, et al.)

Alas, it seems these traitors live on to repeat their betrayals over and over with impunity.

Nice work if you can get it, I guess - if you're a sociopath like Jeff Klein and his fellow IDCer's.

They're down in Puerto Rico cutting up the cake shaped like New York State right now.

 From State of Politics:

Independent Democratic Conference Leader Jeff Klein on Friday touted his endorsement from the New York State United Teachers union.

“I’m honored to have the endorsement of NYSUT, whose membership works hard each and every day on everything from shaping young minds in our public schools to educating adults in our colleges and universities. I’m committed to being a voice for our educators in Albany,” Klein said in a statement released this afternoon.

Klein faces former city Councilman Oliver Koppell in a Democratic primary next month.
NYSUT announced its slate of endorsements in the Legislature this week, but declined to endorse in the race for governor.

“Those who earn endorsements are friends of public education and labor,” NYSUT President Karen Magee said. “Over the last two years, they earned our support by advocating effectively for our public schools, colleges and healthcare institutions; listening intently to the concerns and aspirations of our members, and voting consistently the right way.”

Let's leave aside that you can't turn your back on State Senator Klein without getting a knife in it.

Let's leave aside that he's a mob-connected politician who belongs in prison, not the state senate.

Let's leave aside that he's been a good friend to Governor Cuomo, ensuring Cuomo got his tax cuts for the 1% and other Wall Street budget priorities.

All those things are bad enough.

But this is a guy who is pro-charter school, pro-voucher, and pro-APPR, a guy who's a favorite of StudentsFirstNY and other education reform groups, a guy who was one of only two Senate Dems who voted a few years ago to end seniority protections for teachers.

If NYSUT leaders had their rank-and-file members interests at heart, they would have turned on Klein and endorsed his opponent, Oliver Koppell.

Instead they endorsed the pro-charter, pro-voucher, pro-APPR guy with the mob ties and education reform bona fides.

Your NYSUT leaders in action

Maybe some of Klein's organized crime friends made them an offer they couldn't refuse?

Old timey corruption, Carlo Gambino-style!

State Senator Jeff Klein took a $10,000 campaign donation from a mafia-linked realty company–the same firm he rents his district office space from. 

The Bronx pol’s July filing shows that the Hutchinson Metro Center, an affiliate of Simone Development–formerly known as Hutch Realty Partners–kicked in the five figures in June. The donation brings the real estate group’s total contribution to Mr. Klein’s operation to a whopping $93,850 since 2006.

Two principals of the company, Michael Contillo and Joseph Deglomini, were indicted in the 1990s of tax evasion, racketeering, and conspiring to raid the pension funds of building trade unions with the help of organized crime.

Mr. Klein relocated his official district office to the Hutchinson Center in 2011. A spokeswoman for the senator said that the move was based on the site’s central ___location in the Bronx- and Westchester-spanning district.

“Senator’s Klein’s district office is located in the expansive Hutchinson Metro Center complex, as are a number of city agencies including the New York City Housing Authority the City’s 911 call center, federal agencies and prominent New York institutions,” said spokeswoman Candice Giove. “Senator Klein’s district office lease, like all of Senate leases and lease renewals, was subject to procurement and vendor review by the State Senate and was reviewed and signed off on by both the Attorney General and New York State Comptroller.”

...

The New York Post has previously noted Mr. Klein had rented space and received donations from the mob-tied firm.

Ms. Giove did not immediately respond to requests for comment specifically about Mr. Klein’s acceptance of campaign funds from a mafia-affiliated organization. 

...

According to the Daily News, Hutch Realty Partners purchased 10 acres of land–immediately adjacent to their center where Mr. Klein’s district office is located–from the state for a total of $5.5 million between 2001 and 2005, when the New York Police Department was interested in constructing a call center on the plot. After an extended fight, the city agreed to buy the land from the company for $46 million.

The senator’s camp said he had no input with the state, the city, or Hutch Realty Partners at any time during the land dealings.

My favorite part of that story?

The sentence that reads:

Ms. Giove did not immediately respond to requests for comment specifically about Mr. Klein’s acceptance of campaign funds from a mafia-affiliated organization.

That's just a fabulous sentence.

In fact, the whole story is just great from start to finish - Klein takes almost $100K from mob associates, they make almost $40 million on land next to Klein's office that they first bought from the state for $5.5 million then sold to the city for $46 million, but Klein says he didn't help in the least with any of it.

Sure you didn't, Jeff.

Is there anybody in Albany political circles who isn't a fucking crook?

Via Jeff Kaufman at ICE UFT, we learn that the UFT gave $250,000 to help Sheriff Andy Cuomo get his casino referendum passed.

Some people may be wondering why the UFT would give money to support gambling, but if you think closely about it, it makes total sense that the organized crime interests who run the teachers union would give a quarter of a million of your hard-earned dues money to the organized crime interests that run the casinos.

It's like Gambino's doing a side deal with the Bonanno's that benefits both crime families.

And Perdido Street School can now reveal what the UFT is getting in return for supporting the casino referendum.

A source at 52 Broadway tells us that the UFT will be granted a license to run one Sheriff Andy Cuomo-approved casino in NYC in return for the UFT support of the gambling referendum.

The casino will be co-located with the UFT charter school, which will be relocated to the former Aqueduct Race Track, now Aqueduct Racino, in Queens, New York.

Our source at 52 Broadway tells us that the UFT leadership knows most teachers in the NYC school system are already gambling with their careers, livelihoods, and reputations by working under the Mike Mulgrew-approved ADVANCE teacher evaluation system, so they figured why not just make some money off all of this.

Teachers at the UFT charter school, where the Advance teacher evaluation system will not be in place, will not be gambling with their careers, livelihoods, and reputations under the Danielson rubric, the state VAM or the city performance assessment "growth model," but the rest of us who are being evaluated under these three components will be subject to the whimsy of Lady Luck.

Here's how the gambling works:

Does the DOE get the class list right or will you be rated using data from the school down the street?

Roll the dice at the UFT Casino and find out!

Did your MOSL committee make a bad choice by deciding to use the state test growth for the lowest third of students?

Pull the one-armed bandit and find out!

Is the VAM rigged by the SED in NYC to come up 22 at the blackjack table?

Take one more card and find out!

There will be a free food buffet of leftovers from the UFT Executive Board meeting and of course the music of Mike Mulgrew's Unity/New Action chorus line of yes men will play over the loud speakers night and day at the UFT casino.

Some come on down to the UFT Poker Palace casino, ring-a-ding-ding, and take a gamble on your career, livelihood, and reputation.

You might roll snake eyes, but let's be honest, if you're a member of the UFT rank and file living under the Advance evaluation system and Common Core, you've got nothing to lose by betting some more.

That is actually the word he used:

So what if there’s an income gap? Mayor Bloomberg says the glaring disparity between the city’s rich and poor only exists because of the city is lucky enough to attract the world’s super-wealthy.

“You picture this income inequality measure, but if we could get every billionaire around the world to move here, it would be a godsend,” he said in his weekly radio show Friday morning.

Bloomberg, whose $31 billion net worth last year put him 10th on Forbes Magazine’s annual list of wealthiest Americans, said billionaires keep the city running.

“They are the ones that pay a lot of the taxes,” he said.

“They are the ones that spend a lot of money in the stores and restaurants and create a big chunk of our economy. And we take the tax revenues from those people to help people throughout the entire rest of the spectrum.”

New York has the largest income inequality gap of any city in the country, according to a census report this week. But Bloomberg says that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“While there are still people at the bottom struggling,” he said, “we’ve made a lot of progress, the problem in the income gap is not at that end. The reason it’s so big is at that higher end we’ve been able to do something that none of these other cities can do. And that is attract a lot of the very wealthy from around the country and around the world.”

Oftentimes those same billionaires Bloomberg is aggrandizing own big chunks of corporations that pay no taxes, receive tax breaks from the city for 20, 30 or even 40 years, and enjoy all kinds of corporate welfare benefits that helps put those billions in those billionaires' accounts.

Sometimes those billionaires or multi-millionaires own companies that pay slave wages to their employees, forcing those employees to seek help from the government (i.e., food stamps) in order to feed their families.

Think Ken Langone, who owns Home Depot, or the Walton Family, which owns Walmart, or the Koch Brothers, who own all sorts of industries and companies that hire exploitable labor.

These same billionaires often use tax shelters to make sure they don't have to pay their fair share of taxes.

Take Mike Bloomberg, for example, who uses the Cayman Islands as a tax shelter for Bloomberg Philanthropy.

So Mayor Bloomberg can talk his Ayn Rand fantasy about how the billionaire "movers" and "creators" are letting the riff raff live off them all he wants.

The truth is, nobody makes a billionaire dollars honestly.

Nobody.

Not Ken Langone, not the Waltons, not the Koch Brothers, not anyone in the financial world and certainly not Mike Bloomberg.

Mario Puzo opens up The Godafather with a quote from Balzac:

"Behind every great fortune is a crime."

These billionaires Bloomberg is sanctifying with his religious gloss today are no better than organized crime kingpins Puzo writes about in his novel who make their wealth living off the blood of others.

In fact, they're all part of the same crew of capitalist vultures - gangsters and bankers, industrialists and billionaire mayors of NYC.

The only difference is, Puzo gave his criminals more charm.

US Attorney Preet Baharara expressed disappointment today as he announced the indictments of State Senator Malcolm Smith, City Councilman Dan Halloran, and others on bribery and fraud charges related to the 2013 mayoral race in New York City:

At the Tuesday morning press conference discussing the arrests of state Sen. Malcolm Smith and several others, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara repeated his plea for elected officials to redouble their efforts to fight the seemingly endless tide of official corruption in New York.


Bharara quoted extensively from recordings of several of the accused musing on the role of money in local and state politics — at its center, that is — and said, “After statements like this, and after the string of public corruption scandals that we continue to expose, many may understandably fear that there is no vote that is not for sale, no office without a price, and no official clean of corruption. Many may understandably resign themselves to the sad truth that perhaps the most powerful special interest in politics is self-interest.”


Bharara said it was time for leaders to step up to the plate, and compared what he referred to as “the public corruption crisis in New York” to the film “Groundhog Day.” (As he acknowledged, this comparison made Bharara’s press conference itself a little like the 1993 Bill Murray comedy, since the prosecutor used the same reference in March 2011 when announcing the arrests of Sen. Carl Kruger and others in another bribery scandal.)

But as Matt Taibbi pointed out back in 2011, Preet Baharara is himself implicated in the revolving door scandal between Wall Street regulatory bodies, government officials and Wall Street and has failed to hold even one banker responsible for the 2008 financial collapse accountable:

In the end, of course, it wasn't just the executives of Lehman and AIGFP who got passes. Virtually every one of the major players on Wall Street was similarly embroiled in scandal, yet their executives skated off into the sunset, uncharged and unfined. Goldman Sachs paid $550 million last year when it was caught defrauding investors with crappy mortgages, but no executive has been fined or jailed — not even Fabrice "Fabulous Fab" Tourre, Goldman's outrageous Euro-douche who gleefully e-mailed a pal about the "surreal" transactions in the middle of a meeting with the firm's victims. In a similar case, a sales executive at the German powerhouse Deutsche Bank got off on charges of insider trading; its general counsel at the time of the questionable deals, Robert Khuzami, now serves as director of enforcement for the SEC.

Another major firm, Bank of America, was caught hiding $5.8 billion in bonuses from shareholders as part of its takeover of Merrill Lynch. The SEC tried to let the bank off with a settlement of only $33 million, but Judge Jed Rakoff rejected the action as a "facade of enforcement." So the SEC quintupled the settlement — but it didn't require either Merrill or Bank of America to admit to wrongdoing. Unlike criminal trials, in which the facts of the crime are put on record for all to see, these Wall Street settlements almost never require the banks to make any factual disclosures, effectively burying the stories forever. "All this is done at the expense not only of the shareholders, but also of the truth," says Rakoff. Goldman, Deutsche, Merrill, Lehman, Bank of America ... who did we leave out? Oh, there's Citigroup, nailed for hiding some $40 billion in liabilities from investors. Last July, the SEC settled with Citi for $75 million. In a rare move, it also fined two Citi executives, former CFO Gary Crittenden and investor-relations chief Arthur Tildesley Jr. Their penalties, combined, came to a whopping $180,000.

Throughout the entire crisis, in fact, the government has taken exactly one serious swing of the bat against executives from a major bank, charging two guys from Bear Stearns with criminal fraud over a pair of toxic subprime hedge funds that blew up in 2007, destroying the company and robbing investors of $1.6 billion. Jurors had an e-mail between the defendants admitting that "there is simply no way for us to make money — ever" just three days before assuring investors that "there's no basis for thinking this is one big disaster." Yet the case still somehow ended in acquittal — and the Justice Department hasn't taken any of the big banks to court since.

All of which raises an obvious question: Why the hell not?

Gary Aguirre, the SEC investigator who lost his job when he drew the ire of Morgan Stanley, thinks he knows the answer.

Last year, Aguirre noticed that a conference on financial law enforcement was scheduled to be held at the Hilton in New York on November 12th. The list of attendees included 1,500 or so of the country's leading lawyers who represent Wall Street, as well as some of the government's top cops from both the SEC and the Justice Department.

Criminal justice, as it pertains to the Goldmans and Morgan Stanleys of the world, is not adversarial combat, with cops and crooks duking it out in interrogation rooms and courthouses. Instead, it's a cocktail party between friends and colleagues who from month to month and year to year are constantly switching sides and trading hats. At the Hilton conference, regulators and banker-lawyers rubbed elbows during a series of speeches and panel discussions, away from the rabble. "They were chummier in that environment," says Aguirre, who plunked down $2,200 to attend the conference.

Aguirre saw a lot of familiar faces at the conference, for a simple reason: Many of the SEC regulators he had worked with during his failed attempt to investigate John Mack had made a million-dollar pass through the Revolving Door, going to work for the very same firms they used to police. Aguirre didn't see Paul Berger, an associate director of enforcement who had rebuffed his attempts to interview Mack — maybe because Berger was tied up at his lucrative new job at Debevoise & Plimpton, the same law firm that Morgan Stanley employed to intervene in the Mack case. But he did see Mary Jo White, the former U.S. attorney, who was still at Debevoise & Plimpton. He also saw Linda Thomsen, the former SEC director of enforcement who had been so helpful to White. Thomsen had gone on to represent Wall Street as a partner at the prestigious firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell.

Two of the government's top cops were there as well: Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Robert Khuzami, the SEC's current director of enforcement. Bharara had been recommended for his post by Chuck Schumer, Wall Street's favorite senator. And both he and Khuzami had served with Mary Jo White at the U.S. attorney's office, before Mary Jo went on to become a partner at Debevoise. What's more, when Khuzami had served as general counsel for Deutsche Bank, he had been hired by none other than Dick Walker, who had been enforcement director at the SEC when it slow-rolled the pivotal fraud case against Rite Aid.

"It wasn't just one rotation of the revolving door," says Aguirre. "It just kept spinning. Every single person had rotated in and out of government and private service."

The Revolving Door isn't just a footnote in financial law enforcement; over the past decade, more than a dozen high-ranking SEC officials have gone on to lucrative jobs at Wall Street banks or white-shoe law firms, where partnerships are worth millions. That makes SEC officials like Paul Berger and Linda Thomsen the equivalent of college basketball stars waiting for their first NBA contract. Are you really going to give up a shot at the Knicks or the Lakers just to find out whether a Wall Street big shot like John Mack was guilty of insider trading? "You take one of these jobs," says Turner, the former chief accountant for the SEC, "and you're fit for life."

Fit — and happy. The banter between the speakers at the New York conference says everything you need to know about the level of chumminess and mutual admiration that exists between these supposed adversaries of the justice system. At one point in the conference, Mary Jo White introduced Bharara, her old pal from the U.S. attorney's office.

"I want to first say how pleased I am to be here," Bharara responded. Then, addressing White, he added, "You've spawned all of us. It's almost 11 years ago to the day that Mary Jo White called me and asked me if I would become an assistant U.S. attorney. So thank you, Dr. Frankenstein."

Next, addressing the crowd of high-priced lawyers from Wall Street, Bharara made an interesting joke. "I also want to take a moment to applaud the entire staff of the SEC for the really amazing things they have done over the past year," he said. "They've done a real service to the country, to the financial community, and not to mention a lot of your law practices."

Haw! The line drew snickers from the conference of millionaire lawyers. But the real fireworks came when Khuzami, the SEC's director of enforcement, talked about a new "cooperation initiative" the agency had recently unveiled, in which executives are being offered incentives to report fraud they have witnessed or committed. From now on, Khuzami said, when corporate lawyers like the ones he was addressing want to know if their Wall Street clients are going to be charged by the Justice Department before deciding whether to come forward, all they have to do is ask the SEC.

"We are going to try to get those individuals answers," Khuzami announced, as to "whether or not there is criminal interest in the case — so that defense counsel can have as much information as possible in deciding whether or not to choose to sign up their client."

Aguirre, listening in the crowd, couldn't believe Khuzami's brazenness. The SEC's enforcement director was saying, in essence, that firms like Goldman Sachs and AIG and Lehman Brothers will henceforth be able to get the SEC to act as a middleman between them and the Justice Department, negotiating fines as a way out of jail time. Khuzami was basically outlining a four-step system for banks and their executives to buy their way out of prison. "First, the SEC and Wall Street player make an agreement on a fine that the player will pay to the SEC," Aguirre says. "Then the Justice Department commits itself to pass, so that the player knows he's 'safe.' Third, the player pays the SEC — and fourth, the player gets a pass from the Justice Department."

This arrest is related to the News Corporation hacking/bribery scandal in Britain, not the News Corporation bribery investigation in China:

Geoff Webster, the deputy editor of the Sun, has been charged over alleged criminal offences relating to payments of £8,000 to two public officials.

Webster was charged on Wednesday with two counts of conspiring to commit misconduct in public office during 2010 and 2011.

"The first offence relates to allegations that Mr Webster, between July 2010 and August 2011, authorised payments totalling £6,500 for information supplied by a public official to one of his journalists," the Crown Prosecution Service said.

"The second offence relates to an allegation that in November 2010, Mr Webster authorised a payment of £1,500 for information provided by an unknown public official."

Alison Levitt QC, principal legal adviser to the director of public prosecutions, said the decisions arose from Operation Elveden, the Metropolitan police's investigation into allegations of unlawful provision of information to journalists by public officials.

"We have concluded, following a careful review of the evidence, that Geoff Webster, who at the time of the alleged offending was deputy editor of the Sun newspaper, should be charged with two offences of conspiring to commit misconduct in public office, contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977," she said.

...

 Webster was arrested in February last year, along with four other Sun employees. One of that group, chief reporter John Kay, has already been charged. The CPS said it was making no further immediate announcements on charging decisions in the remaining three cases.

In addition, Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper apologized publicly to an MP for hacking into her phone and text messages after someone stole her cell phone in 2010:

Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid paper, the Sun, has apologized to a politician for accessing information on a mobile phone that had been stolen from her, the BBC reports.
Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh's phone was stolen from her car in October 2010. 

British police later told her that the Sun had been accessing her text messages from around this date.

In London's High Court today, the Sun, part of Murdoch's News International group of newspapers, apologized for accessing the private information, and agreed to pay McDonagh "very substantial damages".

Exactly who stole the phone has not been revealed, though the Sun has not accepted any responsibility for that crime. There had been earlier reports that the phone was handed in to the paper by "a member of the public." 

...  

This latest news is just the newest development in accusations of phone hacking and other unsavory practices by Murdoch's U.K. journalists. Murdoch's best-selling U.K. newspaper, the News of the World, was shut down after serious accusations about phone hacking came to light in 2011.

While the Sun was largely able to escape accusations about phone hacking, these new allegations could prove difficult for Murdoch's British newspapers to shake. Today a lawyer for phone hacking victims told the High Court that there were potentially "hundreds" of new victims.

These guys at all the major banks are being implicated in the LIBOR fixing scandal.

And it looks like members of the Cameron government are involved in the cover-up.

Shade of Murdoch/hacking from last summer.

Only worse - much, much worse.

At what point is somebody in power going to be held accountable for this stuff?

Until you put some of these fuckers into jail, this shit is going to continue.

Although I'm not sure even throwing bankers and their political fixers into jail is going to stop the corruption.

I'm actually with George Carlin on this - might be time to bring on the Monday Night Crucifixtions.

Something needs to be done.

These Masters of the Universe brought the world economy to the brink of collapse in 2008.

It seems quite clear that if they continue to be granted the freedom to steal with impunity, they will bring the world economy to collapse next time around.

Nothing like one of their own exposing them in public for being the crooks they are:

Until early Wednesday morning, Greg Smith was a largely anonymous 33-year-old midlevel executive at Goldman Sachs in London.

Now everyone at the firm — and on Wall Street — knows his name.

Mr. Smith resigned in an e-mail message to his bosses at 6:40 a.m. London time, laying out concerns that Goldman’s culture had gone haywire, putting its own interests ahead of its clients.

What the e-mail didn’t say was that about 15 minutes later, an Op-Ed article he had written detailing his criticisms was to be published in The New York Times. “It makes me ill how callously people still talk about ripping off clients,” he wrote in the Op-Ed article.

The Op-Ed landed “like a bomb,” inside Goldman, said one executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The article reignited a debate on the Internet and on cable television over whether Wall Street was corrupted by greed and excess. By noon, television crews crowded outside Goldman’s headquarters in Lower Manhattan. More than three years after the financial crisis, the perception that little has changed on Wall Street — and that no one has been held accountable for the risk-taking that led to the crisis — looms large in the public consciousness.

...

Although he isn’t highly paid by Wall Street standards — earning about $500,000 last year, according to people briefed on the matter — Mr. Smith is part of what some Goldman staff members and alumni refer to as a sizable, yet silent contingent within the investment bank. These people are increasingly frustrated with what they see as a shift in recent years to a profit-above-all mentality.

Evidence of this shift, they say, can be seen in the accusations brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2010 that the firm intentionally duped certain clients by selling a mortgage-security product that was designed by another Goldman client betting that the housing market would crash. More recently, a Delaware judge criticized Goldman over the multiple, and potentially conflicting, roles it played in brokering an energy deal. (In both cases, Goldman has denied any wrongdoing.)

Even the greed-loving, Wall Street-worshipping, union-bashing shills at the Daily News felt the need to criticize Goldman:

Goldman Sachs’ clients will be the ultimate judge of whether the venerable Wall Street investment bank is a topflight firm or closer to the tank of scheming sharks portrayed on Wednesday’s New York Times Op-Ed page.

Goodness knows, over the years, while the firm has profited handsomely, Goldman has managed to make its customers plenty of money.

That said, the essay by Greg Smith, “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs,” will stand as a landmark cri de coeur , one that will have long-term reverberations for the company and the industry it so powerfully represents.

Smith ended a 12-year career at Goldman with a resignation letter for the ages. He wrote of a growing culture of voracious greed and described an ethic that put profit above all else — especially clients’ interests.

Those clients were left, in Smith’s words, like muppets with their eyes torn out.

Not surprisingly, the firm views the column as overamplified griping by one disgruntled employee. Perhaps. There are two or more sides to every story. But Smith’s descriptions are harrowing.

He described his pleasure, from his first day on the job as a recent college grad, at being a company man. He advised major clients around the world, worth more than a trillion dollars in assets. He sought out and mentored potential hires, even appearing in a Goldman recruitment video.

Then, a drastic shift in corporate culture changed everything.

“I knew it was time to leave,” he wrote, “when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.”

Wrote Smith: “Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as ‘muppets.’ ”

“These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, ‘How much money did we make off the client?’ . . . You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner hearing about ‘muppets,’ ‘ripping eyeballs out’ and ‘getting paid’ doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen.”

Indeed they don't.

Better hold some teachers accountable, eh Daily Newsers?

That'll make things all better.

Because so far, nobody - I mean nobody - from Wall Street has been held accountable for the financial collapse and the ethical and moral lapses that lead to it.

Wow - check out this doozy of a statement from UFT President Mike Mulgrew today:

In their lawsuit attempting to stop the ratings from being released, United Federation of Teachers officials identified more than 200 such errors. UFT President Michael Mulgrew said today that the errors showed that the city had not been respectful of teachers in developing or releasing the ratings.

“This was a complete debacle in terms of how the DOE has handled [the reports] and the mismanagement of the data inside of the system,” he said.

Asked whether he thought the state’s model would avoid the pitfalls the UFT identified in the city’s reports, Mulgrew said, ”I’m not confident.”

But he said the state’s evaluation requirements are an improvement over the Teacher Data Reports because the new evaluations will showcase the value-added calculations alongside other measures of teacher quality.

Okay, let me get this straight - Mulgrew's not confident that the state's VAM model will be an improvement over the city's VAM model used in the TDR's - you know, the one with the margin of error as high as 75% in math and as high as 87% in ELA - but he STILL agreed to make it THE determining factor in a teacher's evaluation?

After all, come up "ineffective" on the part of the eval based just on test scores (40%) and you have to be declared "ineffective" overall as a teacher, no matter how you score on the other 60% based upon classroom observations and other measures.

Two consecutive years of that ignominious "ineffective" designation and you're fired.

And STILL Mulgrew of the UFT and Iannuzzi of the NYSUT agreed to that evaluation system even though Mulgrew's not confident that it will be any better than the one the city used with the high MOE's and the wide swings in variability?

Gee - that makes no sense.

Mulgrew better send out Lying Leo Casey to spin that doozy.

Leo is a master crafter of b.s., so perhaps he can spin this into something people support.

But on the face of the statement Mulgrew made to Gotham Schools today, the UFT president is saying he agreed to a teacher evaluation system based on student test scores that he lacks confidence in.

The crisis at News Corporation continues to spread this morning:

Dark rumours were swirling as long ago as last spring, when Rupert and James Murdoch paid three unprecedented visits to Wapping in the space of a month.

Not only were father and son considering closing the scandal-racked News of the World, went the chatter on the Wapping grapevine, but its sister paper, the Sun, was also in the line of fire. Back then the fears seemed outlandish, born of the febrile atmosphere around the Sunday title that was to bring about its demise last July. There was little evidence the toxic allegations of malpractice would spread to the daily tabloid.

But what seemed incredible last year is now being discussed openly in Fleet Street following the arrests of five Sun employees on suspicion of bribing public officials. They follow the arrest of four other current and former Sun executives and journalists in January – and the separate arrest of a reporter on the paper the previous November – on similar suspicions.

The drip, drip nature of the arrests is in danger of becoming a flood. What started as a separate, but minor, line of investigation for the Metropolitan police team predominantly charged with examining allegations of phone hacking now threatens to become an epic bribery scandal of equal gravity.

Indeed, the moral rot at the core of News Corporation is more and more exposed as the arrests in the various police investigations mount:

A total of 21 people have now been arrested in the bribery probe, Operation Elveden, including three police officers, though no one has yet been charged. Those arrested include Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of Murdoch's News International, the company that owns the Sun, and ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson, who went on to become prime minister David Cameron's communications chief.

That the arrests are linked to alleged bribes paid not just to police officers but prison staff and Ministry of Defence officials, confirms Scotland Yard is throwing its net wider as it seeks to root out corruption. The arrest of an MoD official may invite speculation that the Official Secrets Act could have been breached.

Here in the United States, News Corporation may face investigation under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for the bribery charges:

The latest Operation Elveden arrests sharply increase the danger to News Corporation of potential multimillion dollar fines by US authorities as part of the continuing investigation into alleged bribery of public officials under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

The eight arrests escalate the FCPA crisis for the company by extending the allegations of bribery from the News of the World to the Sun newspaper, and by broadening its scope from police officers to other public officials. An official from the Ministry of Defence and a member of the armed forces were also arrested for alleged corruption and "misconduct in a public office".

The threat of prosecution under the FCPA constitutes the greatest danger of the phone-hacking scandal for Rupert Murdoch's media empire. It could expose the company to tens of millions of dollars in fines and the risk of imprisonment of its executive officers.

So what is Rupert Murdoch's strategy going forward on this widening scandal?

Why, put Joel Klein in charge of whacking every News Corp. employee who is even suspected of bad behavior:

Toxic allegations that the Yard failed to take allegations of endemic phone hacking on the News of the World seriously did for the careers of both the Met's commissioner, Paul Stephenson, and his deputy, John Yates.

Now it is the mirror image of this relationship that is damaging the Sun. The paper's journalists are said to be furious that the arrests have been triggered by information supplied to the Yard by the Management and Standards Committee (MSC), an independent committee set up by the New York-based News Corporation, the parent company of News International. Following the first set of arrests, a News International source suggested it was intent on "draining the swamp", a comment that provoked fury among the company's journalists.

In a statement, the MSC said it was ploughing through a mass of information as it seeks to ensure "that unacceptable news gathering practices by individuals in the past will not be repeated". The committee has given a team of advisers, lawyers and forensic IT staff a broad remit to search for any evidence of wrongdoing. Significantly, the investigation is not confined to the now defunct News of the World. Overseen by Will Lewis, the former Telegraph executive, the committee is working closely with the law firm Linklaters, which is conducting a review of all three remaining News International titles – the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times.

"The MSC is authorised to conduct internal investigations to fulfil its responsibilities in relation to News International's papers," the committee said in a statement. "It has powers to direct News International staff to co-operate fully with all external and internal investigations, and to preserve, obtain and disclose appropriate documents."

Chaired by Lord Grabiner QC and reporting directly to Joel Klein, executive vice-president and board director of News Corp, the committee's team is examining some 300m emails and what one insider described as "masses of hard copy". "They are looking at more information than one person could read in an entire lifetime," the insider said.

Well, Klein always did love data, didn't he?

Now he's got a treasure trove of it to look through, but one main piece of evidence found recently points to EXACTLY what Klein and Rupert intend to do next - pin this mess on Rupert's son, James.

The NY Times has that part of the story:

LONDON — As dozens of investigators and high-powered lawyers converge on Rupert Murdoch’s News International in the phone hacking scandal, attention has focused on the printout of an e-mail excavated three months ago from a sealed carton left behind in an empty company office.

Addressed to Mr. Murdoch’s son James, it contained explosive information about the scale of phone hacking at The News of the World tabloid — information James Murdoch says he failed to take in because he did not read the whole e-mail chain.

The e-mail returned to cause trouble for News International, the British newspaper subsidiary of News Corporation, several weeks ago when the company said that it had been deleted from Mr. Murdoch’s computer. Even as people familiar with the investigations said the e-mail and its convoluted history will form a crucial part of the inquiry into allegations of a cover-up, the scandal appeared to be widening on Saturday, as senior journalists at News Corporation’s Sun tabloid were arrested.

Tracing the story of the e-mail, which was found in November and first became publicly known in December, also sheds light on the intrigue surrounding Mr. Murdoch, the company’s heir apparent, and on efforts to protect him from the scandal.

Embroiled in three separate police operations, a parliamentary investigation, a judicial inquiry and a flurry of civil suits with potentially hundreds more waiting in the wings, News Corporation has begun to provide information that suggests a broader sweep of hacking activity at News International than was suspected even recently and more widespread knowledge within the company of past efforts to cover it up.

This new level of cooperation includes the release of damaging material from an internal investigation that is being overseen by executives who, observers say, are using it to consolidate their power within the company, a move that could come at James Murdoch’s expense.

The executive running the internal investigation who is releasing all the damaging material that has been resulting in arrests for Sun employees is of course Joel Klein.

He's the guy who is supposed to be "draining the swamp," as The Guardian story put it.

But more and more, it seems like he is running the cover-up around Rupert and throwing everybody else to the dogs - including Rupert's son, James.

Here is Murdoch biographer, Michael Wolff, on twitter:

NYT story re James Murdoch doesn't say he'll be arrested shortly, and that company is riven by perceived Joel Klein putsch--but almost says...Front page NYT story about James Murdoch will move case in UK more than same news in British papers...Joel Klein strategy at News Corp is to let Brits sink or swim. Unclear how much this is de facto or if Murdoch has bought in.

That last point is interesting - is Klein running this strategy at Rupert's behest or is he freelancing it?

Hard to know, but it quite clear Klein is running News Corporation strategy on the scandal and therefore essentially running News Corporation.

He's the one throwing everybody under the bus over at The Sun

We'll have to see if some of the pre-Klein News International and News Corporation employees begin to push back against Klein.

This article from Reuters on February 6 gives an indication of just how contentious things are between the people Klein brought in and the pre-Klein people:

News Corp says the committee is independent of News International. But it isn’t independent of the parent company: via Joel Klein it reports to News Corp board member Viet Dinh, who was an associate counsel to the US senate banking committee for the Whitewater investigation of President Bill Clinton. Dinh, who also served as a US assistant attorney general in the George W Bush administration, has been on the board for eight years, and is godfather to a child of Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s eldest son.

Klein was initially hired by Rupert Murdoch to head a new education division at News Corp.

In the United States, people in News Corp’s headquarters are aware of the growing tensions in London but feel they have no alternative but to stick to their course, according to a company insider.

The committee is divided into teams of lawyers and police who work in soundproofed offices, according to the people who are familiar with the work. The volume of data is so large that there is no question of reading each document. Instead, searches are carried out for key terms, meaning that no one knows what secrets may be buried in the documents - many of them deleted or corrupted emails that have been recently recovered - until the right term is hit upon.

MSC workers try to keep a distance from News International’s journalists. At first they were in the same building, but kept bumping into reporters and editors in the lobby or lifts. Now they are in a separate building where they share a floor with BrandAlley, an online clothing retailer in which News International has a stake.

“Filthy insects”
But different buildings do not guarantee peace. News International journalists say they are furious at the committee. When media reports began circulating that an insider had described the MSC’s work as “draining the swamp,” tempers flared.

“What do they mean, ‘drain the swamp’?” asked a News International journalist. “Are they saying we’re a bunch of filthy insects?” News Corp, the journalist continued, “is seen as the enemy now. They have failed to exercise due diligence... and their response now is to dump on their own employees. It’s a disgrace.”

The NY Times has more on the battle between management and employees:

Among former employees of The News of the World, said one, there is cynicism about the motivations of their former employer. Some feel, the person said, that the management “is protecting itself and serving up journalists.”

Britain’s National Union of Journalists criticized what it characterized as the handing of the staff members to the police without internal investigation of the evidence. “It’s a very brutal way of treating senior journalists who may or may not have done anything wrong,” said the group’s deputy general secretary, Barry Fitzpatrick.

News Corporation is at war with itself and Joel Klein, the master of creative destruction, is leading the charge.

I have to admit, I'm dubious Klein really wants to drain the swamp at News Corp.

Quite frankly, it seems to me that he has circled the wagons around Rupert and is slowly throwing everybody else to the wolves.

That includes Rupert's son, James.

There is little doubt to me that the Times article today about James and the incriminating email was planted by Klein.

Whatever happens next, one thing we can be sure about.

Things are going to get much worse for News Corporation before they get better.

You can't have a company at war with itself and expect it to thrive.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post never misses an opportunity to use the misdeeds and/or crimes of a handful of teachers to smear all 75,000 New York City teachers.

Currently they are running a series called CUOMO'S CHALLENGE in which they write about a few teachers who have either engaged in inappropriate behavior or have committed crimes and use those stories to insinuate that there are thousands of others in New York City schools just like this but the city cannot fire them because the teachers union acts as protector.

It's jive, of course - the overwhelming majority of New York City school teachers do not engage in criminality, do not act inappropriately with students, do not steal. and should not be under suspicion by the New York Post or anybody else.

But reality never stopped any Rupert Murdoch-owned media outlet from using the stories of one or two people to push through a political agenda - which is EXACTLY what they are doing with this CUOMO'S CHALLENGE series.

But as I have pointed out already in previous posts, if any organization or institution seems to have an inordinate share of criminals and sleazebags, it is actually the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corporation.

Twenty News Corporation employees have already been arrested in the phone hacking scandal in Britain on crimes ranging from phone hacking, computer hacking, conspiracy to cover up a crime, destroying evidence of a crime, bribing police and lying to police.

This list of the arrested includes the former chief editor of the now-closed News of the World tabloid and aide to Prime Minister David Cameron, Andy Coulson, and the former chief executive of News International, the British wing of Rupert Murdoch's newspaper empire, Rebekah Brooks.

Former publisher of the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, Les Hinton, and Murdoch's son, James, are also being scrutinized by investigators in the case and may be arrested in the near future.

In addition, News Corporation has recently settled with some of the victims of its wide-ranging phone hacking, in the process acknowledging “that senior employees and directors” of the company “knew about the wrongdoing and sought to conceal it by deliberately deceiving investigators and destroying evidence.”

So here is the News Corporation-owned New York Post tarring ALL New York City teachers with the crimes or misdeeds of a few when a huge percentage of its executives and directors have engaged in criminal activities.

That takes chutzpah, doesn't it?

But it gets better.

Let's not forget that Murdoch also owns FOX 5 here in New York, a station that currently is dealing with the allegations that one of its on-air personalities and anchors, Greg Kelly, raped a woman.

According to NY1, the woman claims Kelly got her drunk, attacked her sexually, and impregnated her. The woman says she later had an abortion.

Kelly, son of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, denies attacking her but does not deny having sex with her. He says it was "consensual."

Police sources have told the newspapers that the woman is a credible source.

Kelly has taken a voluntary leave from FOX 5 to deal with this scandal.

He is not the first FOX 5 personality to be embroiled in scandal.

Don't forget that former FOX 5 reporter Charles Leaf was arrested on child molestation charges in 2010 after he sexually attacked a four-year old girl in New Jersey.

Leaf's sister, Susan Gaudet, told the New York Daily News that Leaf had previously molested family members (including a three year old) back in the 1980's over the course of six years and told the newspaper:

"I'd like to see them put him away for the rest of his life," fumed Gaudet, one of Leaf's three sisters, from Jacksonville, N.C. "I am so full of rage. If I had the opportunity to spit in his face and hurt him, I would do it."

Gaudet told the News that Leaf admitted to his family that he had molested his female relatives but was never prosecuted for those crimes.

So here FOX 5 hired a man who had admitted molesting family members in the past, who once again was molesting the children of neighbors, to work as a reporter.

Can you imagine if such a person had been working as a teacher? What would the New York Post have published about that? How would they have tarred ALL teachers for the crimes of one, how would they have used that story to push for stronger evaluations of teachers?

Because if one of these guys, these dirty rotten criminals, got hired, then more must have!

And yet, when it is their own News Corporation employees, when it is FOX 5 employees who are accused of behavior and crimes that are BEYOND THE PALE, we hear nothing from the Post reporting how this shows a pattern of criminality in News Corporation, how if 22 News Corporation employees have been arrested over the last two years on various crimes, then maybe ALL News Corporation employees need to be scrutinized.

Any other rapists or child molesters at FOX 5, Rupert?

More teacher-bashing by the NY Post today in a running section they call CUOMO'S CHALLENGE - they allegedly reviewed almost 100 disciplinary hearings involving teachers in 2011 and found that "only" a "paltry" 31% of the 70 charged with misconduct were removed from their jobs.

Never mind if those charged with misconduct who weren't removed from their jobs were "falsely" charged or if the charges did not warrant removal from their jobs - the Post editors see all teachers as criminals and all in need of removal by the city.

Meanwhile back in News Corporation Land, a broadening criminal scandal has seen 20 News Corporation employees arrested - including the former chief editor of the now-closed News of the World tabloid and aide to Prime Minister David Cameron, Andy Coulson, and the former chief executive of News International, the British wing of Rupert Murdoch's newspaper empire, Rebekah Brooks - for crimes ranging from phone hacking, computer hacking, conspiracy to cover up a crime, destroying evidence of a crime, bribing police and lying to police.

The former publisher of the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal and long-time right-hand man to Rupert Murdoch, Les Hinton, and Murdoch's own son, James, are also in the sights of criminal investigators.

News Corporation settled with a few of the people its employees hacked and in the process acknowledged “that senior employees and directors” of the company “knew about the wrongdoing and sought to conceal it by deliberately deceiving investigators and destroying evidence.”

The investigation is ongoing, more arrests are expected, more hacking victims are suing News Corporation over the criminal activity, more settlements are expected by the legal teams leading those suits.

You rarely if ever hear about this Watergate-sized scandal embroiling News Corporation if you only read the News Corporation-owned New York Post.

They never mention how 20 of their companies employees were arrested in the hacking scandal, how more are expected to be arrested, how Rupert Murdoch's son, James, and his right-hand man, Les Hinton, may be on that list, how the more investigators dig into the scandal, the more News Corporation sleaze they dig up.

Nope - all you ever hear about is "bad teachers" and the city's and state's need to fire them.

This from a news organization that is so criminal and corrupt, you need a very large scorecard to track all the arrests of and all the crimes perpetrated by the people who work for it.

Gee - this kind of thing would be a front page story at the New York Post if it were a teacher admitting it:

LONDON — The actor Jude Law, the soccer star Ashley Cole, and Lord Prescott, a former British deputy prime minister, were named Thursday on a list of 36 victims of phone hacking who have reached settlements totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars with Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

A statement by lawyers representing hacking victims said that Mr. Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, which published the now-defunct News of the World tabloid, had agreed to pay substantial damages on the basis “that senior employees and directors” of the company “knew about the wrongdoing and sought to conceal it by deliberately deceiving investigators and destroying evidence.”

While not explicitly admitting or denying those claims, the company agreed to set compensation on the basis that it was true. In doing so, it acknowledged, lawyers said, that it had deliberately covered up both the existence and the pervasiveness of The News of the World’s phone-hacking operation, lied about it to the police and Parliament, and destroyed evidence in the case.

Hmm - lying to police, lying to Parliament, destroying evidence, and covering up criminal activity - it sure sounds like Rupert Murdoch has a lot of bad, bad people working at News Corporation.

In fact, some of those bad people are right in his own family.

Like his son, James, who just might be next on the list to get arrested in the phone hacking case.

And yet, tomorrow we will not see a word of this News Corporation story about widespread criminal activity, conspiracy and cover-up in the pages of the News Corporation-owned New York Post.

We will, however, inevitably see a couple of articles about why teachers need to be fired.

Because you know how how a teacher forging a jury duty note is absolutely the worst crime ever, but News Corporation executives and directors lying to police, lying to Parliament, destroying evidence, and covering up criminal activity is just another day at the News Corporation office.

And just in case you think this Jude Law hacking case is the only one Murdoch is going to settle, here's what the lawyer in the case said:

Mark Lewis, a lawyer for many of the phone-hacking victims, said in an e-mail that the claimants’ fight against the Murdoch media properties was not over.

“It is important that we don’t get carried away into thinking that the war is over,” Mr. Lewis said, according to The Associated Press. “ There are many more cases in the pipeline.”

He added: “This is too early to celebrate, we’re not even at the end of the beginning.”

Wow - they're not even at the end of the beginning of this.

You can imagine what more will come in these cases.

Indeed, The Guardian reports today that a judge in another civil trial has ordered News Corporation to make available computers and laptops upon which News Corporation employees destroyed evidence of hacking:

News Group Newspapers has been ordered to allow a search of computers alleged to contain evidence that News of the World executives deliberately destroyed damning phone-hacking evidence.

During legal discussions on Thursday before a civil trial scheduled for 13 February, the company failed to convince Mr Justice Vos that the search of three laptops assigned to senior employees and six desktop computers was "disproportionate".

...

He said there were compelling questions about whether the paper had engaged in a campaign of deliberate destruction of evidence, had lied, deliberately concealed evidence, made payments to police, or had "actively tried to get off scot-free", including by destroying a "very substantial number of emails" and computers of journalists.

There we go again with more allegations of News Corporation employees destroying evidence, lying to authorities, conspiring to cover up criminal activity and offering bribes to police.

Offering bribes to police?

Wow - that's even worse than forging a jury duty note!

No wonder 20 former and current News Corporation employees - including the former editor of News of the World and aide to Prime Minister David Cameron, Andy Coulson, and former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks - have been arrested in the case.

I keep writing the New York Post to ask the editors how they can pontificate about "bad teachers" who should be fired all the time from the op-ed pages of the Post when it is increasingly clear that the company they work for, News Corporation, is only slightly less criminal than an organized crime family like the Gambinos (but only slightly.)

They never write back to say.

They do, however, pontificate about a teacher who forged jury notes to get extra days off and how she should be fired.

I wonder when this hacking investigation is all through, how many of the News Corporation employees who worked on the FIRE TEACHERS stories in the Post will eventually end up in jail for criminal activity, cover-up, conspiracy, bribery, perjury, forgery and/or tampering with evidence in what has become a widespread case of corruption and rot at the core of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.