Azi Paybarah

The governor has more than $4 million in his campaign war chest. (azi paybarah / wnyc)

A brief look at his money intake:

$25,000 came from an accomplished tax attorney in Buffalo, Steven J. Weiss. Another $5 - yes, five dollars - was donated by a woman in Miami, Florida, Adrian Siegel. (A campaign spokesman could not immediately explain what may have prompted that particular contribution.) New Yorkers for Affordable Housing donated $25,000.

Other donors were less transparent.

$30,000 came from six business groups using three different addresses.

Another $35,000 were given by two LLCs, private business organizations that, under state rules, do not have to disclose their owners, and whose contributions do not get counted towards any individual's donor cap. Currently, the state limits the amount of money an individual donor can give to a candidate. For statewide candidates, the cap is more than $37,000. The lack of disclosure around contributions from LLCs have rankled government watchdogs for years.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Cuomo defended taking money from this types of organizations.

"I want to reform the campaign finance system. To reform the campaign finance system I have to get elected," Mr. Cuomo said, and added, "To get elected I have to raise money."

Former Republican Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, tells me there were two crucial mistakes Lieberman made that ultimately doomed his career.

The first was running for vice president while also seeking re-election to his senate seat in 2000.

"Had he spent three more hours in Florida, they could have gotten the 500 more votes," he said, referring off-handedly to Democrats narrow, and controversial, loss in that state, which tipped the outcome.

Lieberman's endorsement of Republican John McCain for president in 2008, actually, wasn't the second misstake, according to Shays. It was the criticisms Lieberman made of Obama - particularly at the Republican National Convention - that was the problem.

"It's very intoxicating speaking at a convention," said Shays. "It's very tempting to go further than logic would dictate."

Top campaign aides got tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses. (azi paybarah /wnyc)

Last month, after his landslide victory in the governor's race, Andrew Cuomo's campaign gave tens of thousands of dollars to top campaign operatives.

On December 8, the following checks were cut:

$90,000 to Joe Percoco.
$80,000 to Drew Zambelli.
$50,000 Benjamin Lawsky.

All three now work for the administration.

Percoco is now an "executive deputy secretary." Zambelli is now "counselor to the governor." And Lawsky is now the Chief of Staff.

A Cuomo campaign spokeswoman said the payouts were bonuses.

NYPIRG's Bill Mahoney puts Cuomo's war chest in perspective:

The $4,176,120.01 he has in the bank is more than the $2,915,556.84 Spitzer had in 2007 or the $91,224.37 Pataki had in 2003.

Over the past month and a half, he has raised more ($217,625.79) than Spitzer ($51,199.60), but not as much as Pataki ($563,697.13).

He spent more ($1,028,211.00) than Pataki ($508,066.76), but not as much as Spitzer ($2,675,104.38), who paid for large-scale inaugural festivities.

(nbcNewYork.com)

I'm told Sara Kugler Frazier of the Associated Press is leaving to become the managing editor of NBCNewYork.com.

Frazier has been covering the Bloomberg administration since 2005, and managed to get scoops out of them, while not overlooking their warts.

Among the more interesting things I've learned about the mayor, from Frazier's reporting: according to one ex-girlfriend, Bloomberg is "diplomatic" about ending relationships.

The curtain will get pulled back on Cuomo's secret supporters.

The AP:

The business group called the Committee to Save New York is agreeing to register as a lobbyist under pressure following a TV ad campaign backing Gov. Andrew Cuomo that drew criticism.

The group's spokesman Bill Cunningham confirms the decision.
Registering as a lobbyist will force the group to disclose the amount and sources of its funding and to comply with lobbying rules.

Cuomo, who ran on a platform to reduce the power of special interests in Albany, encouraged people to join the group last week.

The New York Times in Tuesday's editions said the committee was formed at Cuomo's urging after a series of meetings last year. The New York Public Interest Research Group says it's up to the state lobbying board to decide if the group circumvented lobbying rules.

UPDATE: Committee spokesman Bill Cunningham said registering with the Commission on Public Integrity was something they were planning on doing ("If yesterday wasn't a holiday, maybe we would have done it yesterday.")

More importantly, Cunningham said registering with the Commission is not an admission that they're lobbyists. He says the group could be considered "grassroots lobbyists" which would require them to disclose their expenditures, not their donors.

Here's how Cunningham described the difference. Lobbyists meet directly with legislators and discuss specific bills. "Grassroots lobbyists" contact the public and urge them to contact legislators.

Since I had him on the phone, I asked Cunningham if one of his old employers, Mayor Bloomberg, is among the Committees donors. Cunningham said he wasn't sure, and, in general, is not aware of who donates to the group.

Asked if he was curious about who is giving money to the organization he represents, Cunningham said, "No, I'm not."

"Terrible" is how Senator Schumer described NJ Governor Christie's cancellation of the ARC tunnel. (azi paybarah / wnyc)

Jim O'Grady:

Governor Christie’s spokesman Michael Drewniak isn’t pulling his punches over New York U.S. Senator Charles Schumer’s criticism on the ARC tunnel. Earlier today, Schumer blasted Christie for make a “terrible, terrible” decision to kill the $9 billion commuter rail train under the Hudson.

“Where was the senior senator from New York with funding alternatives to a project that was predicted to run billions over projections – all of which were to be borne by New Jersey and its taxpayers?,” Drewniak said. “This was a ‘bi-state’ project for which Senator Schumer’s state and the federal government were set to pay zero, zilch, nothing for the cost overruns. We can live with the criticism while protecting taxpayers from this boondoggle, which was simply a bad deal for New Jersey.”

Drewniak went further in questioning Senator’s Schumer’s timing and motivation in slamming Governor Christie’s decision on ARC, which was made in October.

“I’ll also give Senator Schumer the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn’t brush up on the topic before he spoke. Unless, of course, his remarks are merely political, which is always a possibility,” Drewniak said.

No reply yet from Senator Schumer on this latest round of comments.

UPDATE: Schumer's spokesman, Mike Morey, emails: "Rather than come to the table and work with federal officials to deal with overruns, and preserve an asset everyone agrees is needed in the region, the Governor’s decision flushed $6 billion in federal and Port Authority money down the tubes.”

Senior Advisor Howard Wolfson explains how snow impacts the narrative about Mayor Bloomberg. (azi paybarah / wnyc)

Edward-Isaac Dovere:

Except for the iPad, just about any of his appearances could have easily been mistaken for those back in 2007 and into 2008. The two major initiatives of his third inaugural, the deputy commissioner exchange program and a national pro-immigration push, had both all but disappeared, the former a victim of apparently middling results and the latter of a national political climate that was even less interested in hearing from him on border control than it has been on gun control.

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"You have an elite set of critics, who decided in the beginning of 2009 that they would push a third-term-malaise narrative—even before the mayor was re-elected," Wolfson said. "That was not the case prior to the snow, and the hope and expectation is that that Christmas snow was an anomaly, and that people will come to see that."

What the crowd heard before they heckled the mayor yesterday:

By the time Bloomberg was introduced, a few speakers had, perhaps, stoked the crowd's ire at the administration.

City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez of Upper Manhattan had blamed the current city administration for not building enough affordable housing, and for the low graduation rates at community colleges.

"Why did Mayor Bloomberg say that affordable housing was his priority," Rodriguez asked, citing the mayor's promise to renovate 100,000 units plus build an additional 60,000.

"In my district, in Washington Heights, only one big building has been built in the mayor's administration," said Rodgriguez. (The building, he said, was located at 204 Street.) "Only one building has been built. And that is a reality citywide," he said.

Then, Rodriquez, chairman of the council's Higher Education Committee, blasted the mayor on graduation rates.

"Drop out at community colleges, where about 90 percent of the students are black and Latino, only 28 percent graduated after six years," said Rodriguez, to the gasps and groans of the audience. Rodriguez reminded the crowd that Bloomberg had called community colleges one of his "priorities," and said, "the money's not there."

Rodriguez ended his speech predicting the city would not invest the same amount of money in poorer communities as they do in wealthier ones. He then added, "Yes, we have two New Yorks. The New York of the rich and the New York of the poor," echoing a slogan used by Fernando Ferrer, the Democrat who ran against Bloomberg in 2005 (and who enjoyed a visibility-stimulating endorsement from Rev. Sharpton).

More crowd-riling came from Rev. David Hampton of Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn, the same place where Sharpton started out years ago. Hampton spoke about the economic disparity between African Americans, who endured slavery and discrimination at work, to whites, who facing no such obstacles, were able to hand down their accumulated finances generation after generation.

"There's a difference between rich, and wealthy," said Hampton. "Oprah is rich. John D. Rockefeller is wealthy."

Then, Hampton invoked Bloomberg's new (and controversially approved) schools chancellor, Cathie Black. He reminded the crowd that she recently said school overcrowding could be solved by using "birth control." (The comment was made in jest and she has since apologized.)

The crowd grumbled at Hampton's telling of the incident, and one woman in the crowd could be heard saying "stupid!" in response. Then, Hampton said, "How about birth control for those who sit in positions of privilege?" The crowd applauded.

The only major proposal Andrew Cuomo is pushing that is not supported by a majority of New Yorkers is his call to let a tax on the rich expire. According to a Siena poll released today, 2/3 of voters want to continue tax increases on those making more than $200,000 annually.

Interestingly, only 42 percent of voters think the upcoming state budget will not include some form of tax increase.

Among Cuomo's most popular initiatives is his call for more transparency in the legislature. 84 percent say they support lawmakers having to disclose all their outside sources of income.

paladino-buffalonews

Carl Paladino continues his post-election fight with the media, urging supporters to cancel their subscription to the Buffalo News. (Previously, he urged them to subscribe to Newsday, which is based on Long Island).

Paladino:

The News breeds bad journalism to serve its elitist leadership who strive to control and denigrate the masses, especially the poor and disenfranchised. Their editorial page and insidious "news reporting" has routinely worked against the best interests of our region while promoting the interests of a select group of elite power brokers.

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If the local population stands together in protest and cancels their subscriptions to the newspaper for the month of February, the message will be clear.

The goal of this boycott is not to maliciously put the paper out of business. There are many fine people working at the paper and, yes, we need those jobs. Our goal is to send a loud and very clear message to owner Warren Buffet, that the services of the publisher and editors are no longer required.

Sharpton on Meet the Press, discusses MLK, and offers a defense of unions.

"It's not about beating up on union workers. Dr. King died in Memphis going down there for the AFSCME union. Now AFSCME's under attack," said Sharpton, referring to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Vetean police journalist Murray Weiss offers an inside take on the investigation into the snow removal conspiracy:

There is nothing to prosecute, my sources say. Nada.

No one has come forward to investigators since the storm with the names or hard information to back-up the claims of a slowdown that were widely spread through the media.

And prosecutors opened their doors wide open for them. They even sent investigators to the office of Queens City Councilman Dan Halloran, who started all this by saying he heard of the slowdown from guilt-ridden workers themselves. Well, it seems Halloran may have gotten ahead of himself — he's backpedaling quickly.

He originally said five city workers came to him. When investigators visited him, he named two city Department of Transportation workers. Let's just say they basically contradicted his account, and leave it at that.

The three other city workers worked for Sanitation, he maintained. They came to him for legal representation, so he can't provide their names because of attorney-client privilege.

Mayor Bloomberg also uttered some doubts about the work slowdown during the storm.

Rev. Al Sharpton's annual MLK Day event has become a major event in New York. (azi paybarah / wnyc)

Just about every major elected official in New York is going to Al Sharpton's MLK Day event at the National Action Headquarters on 145th Street. Sharpton's events weren't always mandatory for New York politicians, but nowadays, feels like they are.

Sharpton's spokesperson said confirmed attendees include:

Senator Gillibrand

Governor Cuomo (who skipped one of these events before)

Attorney General Schneiderman,

Comptroller DiNapoli,

Mayor Bloomberg

Manhattan District Attorney Vance,

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice, and others.

The full list is here:

Senator Gillibrand

Governor Cuomo

AG Schneiderman

Comptroller DiNapoli

Congressman Rangel

Congressman Meeks

Congressman Nadler -

Mayor Bloomberg

Public Advocate DeBlasio

Comptroller Liu

Speaker Quinn

DA Cy Vance

Assem. Keith Wright

Assem. Hakeem Jeffries

Assem. Karim Camara

CM Julissa Ferreras

CM Ydanis Rodriquez

BP Ruben Diaz

BP Scott Stringer

Mayor David Dinkins

Mike Fishman

Stuart Applebaum

Kathleen Rice

Rev. David Hampton
Rev. David Jefferson, Sr.

Rev. John Scot
Hazel Dukes NAACP
Rabi Marc Schneier

The New York State Senate Chambers. (MMR Dad's Flickr photostream)

If can get around the paywall, or cough up a $1 for The Chief-Leader, State Senator Diane Savino's comments about defecting from the Democratic Caucus are worth checking out.

"We're never going to regain the trust of the voters unless we confront the demons inside our party," she tells the paper. The comment comes afte a lengthy description of how Democrats lured back into their fold two other Democrats, Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate, who proved to be more troublesome in the long-run.

She goes on to say Minority Leader John Sampson was too eager to strike a deal with fellow Democrats in the other chamber, rather than reach across the aisle in his own.

"Time and again they capitulated to the demands of the Assembly…when we know that the future of the Senate for Democrats is in the suburbs," said Savino.

Sampson has his own perspective on why Savino and three other colleagues defected.

A snow truck on Fort Hamilton Parkway, in Brooklyn. (azi paybarah / wnyc)

Does Michael Bloomberg believe there was an orchestrated effort by members of the NYC Sanitation Department to botch the snow removal over Christmas weekend, which has been alleged and now beinginvestigated?

On WOR this morning, Bloomberg cast some doubt:

"There was probably, as far I know, no concerted effort and very people who didn't do their all. I'm sure there were some."

Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly are resisting a boycott of Glock, the gun manufacturer. (azi paybarah / wnyc)

The New York Post editorial board found one ally in their call for the NYPD to boycot Glocks because they, among others, manufacture high-capacity magazines for guns like the ones used in Arizona. That supporter is Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, someone they haven't usually agreed with.

So far, Michael Bloomberg and the NYPD are resisting the boycott, to the editors chagrin.

On WOR this morning, Bloomberg - founder of Mayors Against Illegal Guns - said "we need a law to stop you from selling it." Boycotting, he said, won't work, and could lead to higher crime in the city.

Bloomberg explained that the NYPD buys their guns from three manufactures (Glock, Smith & Wesson and Sig Sauer) and "all three have these magazines," he said.

"The trouble is, if we boycott one, you probably have to boycott all of them and then you go back to the days when the crooks had better guns than the cops. We don't want our cops out-armed, out-gunned. Back in the day when they were out-gunned, we had 2,000 murders. Today's there's not 2,000 murders, there's a quarter of that. There's a lot of things that went into lowering the crime, but arming the cops was part of it."

Steve Rattner, Obama's former car czar, and Andrew Cuomo's pension punching bag, proves no venue is too small to appear.

From a colleague:

Monday March 14, 2011
7:30 PM - 9:00 PM An Evening with Steve Rattner
Contact: Janet Schneider 516-466-####
jschneider@greatnecklibrary.org

Great Neck Library is very pleased to welcome Steven
Rattner back to his hometown to discuss his book "Overhaul: An Insider's
Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto
Industry." Born and raised in Great Neck and a 1970 graduate of Great
Neck North High School, Steven Rattner led the Obama administration's
efforts to restructure the auto industry in 2009 as counselor to the
secretary of the Treasury. His book tells the dramatic story of the
precedent-shattering decision to assume control, force into bankruptcy
and completely restructure Chrysler and General Motors. The author is a
former New York Times financial reporter who also earned a place among
the top tier of Wall Street's most informed investment bankers and
corporate experts.
Location: community Room, 159 Bayview Ave. Main Bldg.

Assemblyman Dick Gottfried is on Cuomo\'s Medicaid Redesign Team, and has some reservations. (azi paybarah / wnyc)

One member of the Medicaid Redesign Team, Dick Gottfried, a Democratic Assemblyman from Manhattan, raises his concerns:

“This may be a year in which you might be able to get more public support for cutting the financial support to the health care system. That doesn’t make it the right thing to do,” he said.

“And when the tv ads start running about cutting off money to grandma’s nursing home or the hospital you might go to in an ambulance, people’s feelings will begin to shift.” (It's worth noting that the group which ran those hard-hitting against against Governor Cuomo's predecessors, Governors Spitzer and Paterson, was 1199 SEIU, whose president is now a member of the Medicaid Redesign Team.)

Gottfried said wants the team to consider a wide range of options, including raising taxes.

“My problem with some of the quote ‘hard choices rhetoric’ is that while the governor in talking about the Medicaid redesign team says there must be no sacred cows, he starts off the budget process by announcing that the most important potential action is in fact a sacred cow that is off the table, and that is bringing in more money from new Yorkers who have the wealth to enable them to do more. I think New Yorkers across the board, including wealthier New Yorkers would understand that that’s the right thing to do.”

He added, “I say that as somebody who represents more wealthy New Yorkers than almost anyone else in the Assembly. My district is probably the 10th wealthiest of the 150 Assembly districts.”

Advocates for the Living Wage legislation say they have a potent weapon: Bloomberg\'s statistics. (azi paybarah / wnyc)

In advance of the major rally tonight in support of the Living Wage bill working it's way through the City Council, an insider provided this roadmap to their strategy.

The campaign is trying to capitalize on two things at once to generate support:

1) Bloomberg's vulnerability at a time when he seems increasingly out of touch with struggling, lower-income residents and

2) the city's laser-like focus on ensuring that taxpayer dollars are wisely invested, after recent revelations of waste (CityTime etc.) and growing concern over strained city resources.

We argue that the living wage bill will reduce the costs of poverty by enabling more working people to be self-sufficient-which means fewer residents will rely on expensive safety programs and public assistance and contribute greater sums to the local tax base and economy.

And we are actively using some of City Hall's own worst stats against them: for example, this figure that a record number of working New Yorkers, 1.8. million, now rely on food stamps because they don't earn enough to support themselves, the highest number since Bloomberg has been in office...!:

That 1.8 million figure is here.

The bill has been revised and now "would exclude businesses that make less than $1 million in revenue annually from having to pay their workers more than the state's current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour."