Fat Old Jewish Guy Who Lives In the Projects

2008-07-15T15:04:00.000-04:00

Full Spectrum Dominance

2008-06-19T19:01:00.001-04:00

The Saudis and US airlines both say that much of the high price of petroleum is due to speculation. The airlines are asking Congress to pass legislation to slow the bubble down. The Saudis have started to pump more and promise still more production. Their actions have not yet made much of a dent in oil prices.

There continue to be uncertainties regarding not only Iraqi production but Nigerian too.
Interesting all the hubub that was generated against the government of Myanmar turns out to have been so much hokum, way exagerated.

"YANGON, Myanmar — More than six weeks have passed since Cyclone Nargis swept through the Irrawaddy Delta in southern Myanmar, leaving a trail of flattened villages and broken lives and arousing international sympathy that turned to anguish as the military government obstructed foreign aid.

Now doctors and aid workers returning from remote areas of the delta are offering a less pessimistic picture of the human cost of the delay in reaching survivors.
They say they have seen no signs of starvation or widespread outbreaks of disease. While it is estimated that the cyclone may have killed 130,000 people, the number of lives lost specifically because of the junta’s slow response to the disaster appears to have been smaller than expected."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/world/asia/18myanmar.html?ex=1214539200&en=036d069abf9c9a83&ei=5070&emc=eta1
Well, there is a reason the US was so desperate to get it's "aid workers" and military, and CIA into Myanmar. Myanmar is very strategic to the energy game. It's rich in natural gas and it borders China. It faces Arabia and Sudan and allows China to avoid the choke point at the Straight of Malacca. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choke_point
US "Full Spectrum Dominance" doctrine http://www.uwsp.edu/history/WIPCS/JSPC2004/Smith2.pdf
is about what it names itself, domination of the world, and that means among other things control over petroleum access.

Iis also apparent that Israel's interests figure into this mix. Israel is well represented in the US Congress, academia, media, and all aspects. Israel is active in Iraqi Kurdistan, an oil rich region that is virtually seceded from Iraq already and there is the little matter of the Haifa pipeline, and the destruction of the only single Arab force that could even begin to challenge Israel.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4DMUS_enUS271US272&q=haifa+pipeline

Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry: Lies are Truth

2008-06-19T04:28:00.005-04:00

This post originally appeared in the PeacePalestine blog.

The people in the press staff of the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry are talented science fiction writers. Almost nothing that they write has any bearing on reality, and it seems that they use Orwell’s 1984 as a guidebook for news dispatches. All that they need to do is look at the facts on the ground (terminology that was invented by the hasbara commission, more than likely, because it is something different than reality...

Cops With Tasers

2008-06-19T03:49:00.006-04:00

One of the incidents that led to my leaving Administration For Children's Services was my reporting of an unstable co worker who sported a fake detective badge and toted a taser she bought on the internet to her case visits. Management fell in behind her like a platoon of soldiers at a basic training graduation parade and set out to screw me into the ground. Everyone knew she was nuts, but she had ambitions to go into law enforcement and people thought well of this ambition and wanted to help her along. Over time this incident helped convince me that I had to resist every stupidity they tried to make me commit and over more time I came to see Administration For Children's Services as an incorrigible enemy of children and families, especially Black, Latino and immigrant families, in New York City.

Now tasers are being pushed as an answer to NYPD' members propensity to shoot their automatic guns in all directions when they experience anything resembling fear. Surely I'd prefer that the cops being put on subway platforms and trains during rush hours have tasers, rather than automatic rifles and dogs, and I guess we have to await the inevitable fatality (ies) before this Bloomberg brain child gets reviewed.

But these tasers, well...

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?id=6199680§ion=news/local#bodyText

> A teenaged son of a former New York City police officer is suing the city, claiming excessive force was used against him when he was tasered at a barbecue in Harlem.
"He has permanent scars that he can never erase. He has memories of officers beating him down. They put him in a choke-hold," said Mita Mingues-Lombard...
She is still angry about what she says New York City police officers did to her son, Alexander Lombard the Third.

The City will be whacked a goodly amount of money in a civil suit, doubtless the cops will be promoted and the insanity will go on probably even when a cop inevitably uses a taser on a heart patient who dies from it. (Just a matter of time too).

Gas Prices Are Out of This World

2008-06-19T02:40:00.005-04:00

$4.31.9! That's what a gallon of regular cost me at a Harlem, New York gas station Tuesday night. That's a lot of cake, a big slice of my gross intake for a twelve hour shift behind the wheel of a New York yellow taxi cab.

Not that I should worry about it. New York City's Commissioner of Taxis and Limousines, Matthew Daus says that taxi drivers earn almost $15.00 an hour and that's a living wage, says he, in New York City with zero days off, zero sick days, zero medical insurance, etc. For those who don't like it "go buy a hybrid" says Daus. Well, I would if I could but I can't so I guess I won't. And they are notoriously finicky, given to expensive repairs and maintenance. I drive for a company that runs over a hundred taxis double shifted. As is when a Crown Victoria has a problem we drivers can rest assured we'll be at the repair shop two, three, four times till whatever is wrong gets righted.

They run around four of these new hybrids. The Ford Hybrid is uncomfortable, difficult for disabled people to get in and out of and the driver safety partition is a nightmare design. The driver cannot open the partition and talk with the passengers, has to yell to get the passenger's attention and the slip for taking cash is directly behind the driver. Now, I'm 62 years old and suffered injury to my right shoulder in a car accident. Every time I make change in a hybrid it hurts so I don't ask to be assigned one.

About these prices, though. OPEC and the US Airlines say they are being hyped by shady speculators and the airlines are asking Congress to do something about it.

I remember Hugo Chavez once suggested oil be pegged at fifty dollars a barrel, saying that would make it viable to extract the heavy crude that is Venezuela's main petroleum reserve, and much of the world's. Now he seems quite reasonable, doesn't he?

How long can this craziness go on?

The New York Post is touting Bloomberg for "Mayor for Life" or Governor, or Vice President, or Owner of The New York Times, or Whatever.

2008-06-07T15:26:00.007-04:00

Imagine if Freddy Ferrer had won the Mayorality and was responsible for what Bloomberg is responsible for (just to mention what comes to the top of my head):

Remains of 9/11 dead found mixed with asphalt and used to pave streets.
Remains of 9/11 dead dumped in the Staten island landfill.An ethnic group shrinking at the rate of 3 percent per year in NYC. An intimate connection with a cult, including putting the cult in charge of after school programs for public school children, and reaching ino both the taxpayer's pockets and his own to fund this cult.
Construction cranes and scaffolding collapsing all over Manhattan killing workers, bystanders and residents, while the Buildings Department is steeped in corruption.
I think Ferrer would have been hounded out of office. I think these things would be common knowledge.

The FARC laptops

2008-05-26T15:08:00.010-04:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/opinion/25sun2.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=farc&st=nyt&oref=slogin

The New York Times says "Interpol has corroborated the authenticity of thousands of computer files captured during a Colombian Army raid on a FARC rebel camp in Venezuela. Only a small share of this trove has been released, but it leaves little doubt that Venezuela has been aiding the guerrillas’ effort to overthrow Colombia’s democratically elected government. "

Duh. The raid was into Ecuador, not into Venezuela.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/world/americas/30colombia.html?fta=y

About the data itself this is what Interpol has to say:

http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/PressReleases/PR2008/pdfPR200817/ipPublicReportNoCoverEN.pdf

The verification of the eight seized FARC computer exhibits by INTERPOL does not imply
the validation of the accuracy of the user files, the validation of any country’s interpretation
of the user files or the validation of the source of the user files. It is well established that for
law enforcement purposes, factual findings concerning the truth or accuracy of the content of
any item of evidence are made in the context of a judicial process at the national or
international level and/or by a specially appointed commission with jurisdiction over the
matter in dispute.

In other words, Interpol is not verifying that the data was placed onto the computers by FARC or that the data means what the Colombian government says it means.

There is an ongoing low intensity war being waged by the US and Colombia against Venezuela. The war manifests itself in many ways including the use of "Black propaganda" to weaken the credibility of the Venezuelan government, an incursion into Venezuela by Colombian troops (denied by Colombia) a violation of Venezuelan airspace by the US (not denied, the US says it overflew Venezuela's version of Camp David by mistake,) the reconstitution of the US 4th Fleet, and US funding of oposition groups in Venezuela. Also the right wing death squad narcoparamilitaries of Colombia called "AUC" are functioning within Venezuela, a weak state that has yet to gain control over its borders. Here is a video related to one succesful Venezuelan Army skirmnish with the supposedly demobilized pro US narcoterrorists.

++++++++++++++++
Doubts raised about "FARC Computers"

Some analysts have raised doubts about Interpol’s conclusions. Three professors of information technology at the Polytechnic University of Ecuador, led by Deacon Carlos Montenegro, held a press conference today criticizing the Interpol report.

The professors emphasized the report did not prove much at all, given the limited scope of the investigation and said Interpol’s face-value acceptance of the devices as FARC property was a contradiction of the report’s own findings. They not only criticized the scope of the report, but also the conclusions of its technical findings.

They seized on the agency’s methodology, which only examined images of the hard drives’ user files handed over by Colombia, and not the hard drives themselves. They demonstrated to a crowd of reporters how easy it is to change the creation and modification dates on documents. They asserted these changes would only leave digital traces on the actual hard drives, which have remained in Colombian custody. Investigators would need access to the actual hard drives and the system files to determine whether and when modifications occurred, according to the Ecuadorian analysts.

The Ecuadorian professors also pointed out that Interpol has now way of determining whether Colombian officials modified, deleted, or created documents between March 1 and 3, as the report contends. In fact, by the Colombian government’s own admission, its handling of the computer devices during those days did not conform to internationally recognized standards on the chain of custody when dealing with forensic evidence. Interpol’s contention that the devices were not modified is based on nothing more than faith in Colombia’s sincerity, argued the professors.

They called on Interpol to release a copy of the hard disks so that independent analysts could investigate. Interpol’s findings have been presented in two reports: one public and another classified report that was shared only with the Colombian government.

Interpol’s report is the latest ingredient in Colombia’s media war against Ecuador and Venezuela after the March attack. While it is far from clear what will happen next, it is plain to see that Colombia is confident that the international media will continue to print their preferred interpretation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel Denvir (daniel.denvir(AT)gmail.com) is an activist and freelance journalist living in Quito, Ecuador. His writing has appeared in Labor Notes, Portland Street Roots and Upsidedownworld.org. He works with the Latin American Information Agency (www.alainet.org).

Transparency International is not transparent.

2008-05-26T14:50:00.002-04:00

Read Calvin Tucker in The Guardian.

Transparency International apparently has trumped up a "report" condemning Venezuela's national oil company PDVSA for lack of transparency, ie. not issuing reports regarding its finances. The report, put together by TI associated in Venezuela who have a track record that includes support for the 2002 coup against Venezuela's elected government is just plain untrue. Mr. Tucker has sought an explanation from Transparency International to no avail.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg becoming a testy biatch

2008-05-21T01:05:00.003-04:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/nyregion/20bloomberg.html?scp=2&sq=mayor+bloomberg&st=nyt

No longer touted as a potential president, beaten on his congestion pricing plan, watching plans for Moynihan Station stall, he's reverting to being a testy biatch who one time slammed a door so hard he broke the latch and locked himself inside the office, ending up asking the people he had slammed the door on to get him out.
Says the New York Times:
Comparing himself with other entrepreneurs in the autobiography, he wrote, “I too think I can do everything better than anyone else.” He added: “Still, my ego does allow for the remote possibility that someone might be as good at one or two little things. I’ve admitted there’s a slim chance that ideas coming from others could be valuable as well.”

Transparency International Exposed For Venezuela Falsehoods

2008-05-18T14:50:00.006-04:00

Transparency international is quoted in the major western media as though it's releases were from The Diety. This is a mistake. Oil Wars blog has exposed total dishonesty and/or ineptitude in TI's recent report attacking Venezuela's state owned oil company PDVSA. Click here to read what Oil Wars has.

Here is a sample of Oil War's devastating exposure of Transparency International's gross dissinformation campaign against Venezuela and its state oil company:

That is right - according to Transparency International PDVSA does not say how much it pays in royalties, taxes, what its revenues are, what its production costs are, does not have audited financial statements, etc., etc.It is simply stunning that Transparency International would have that as its finding for PDVSA because in point of fact PDVSA makes all that information and more public.

Just go to their web-site, click on "Informes Financieros" (on the right hand side of the page), and you will all their audited financial statements from 2007 back to 2000. Open any of those financial statements and you will find for that year ALL of the information that Transparency International claims PDSVSA doesn't make public. Just for the hell of it I opened the 2007 audit report and looked how it compared to T.I.'s claims: T.I. claims PDVSA does not disclose what it pays in royalties.

Really? On page 127 of its financial statement it says it paid $21.9 billion in 2007T.I claims PDVSA does not disclose what taxes it pays to the government.Really? On page 127 it says it $5.017 billion in ISLR taxes.T.I. claims PDVSA does not disclose what its revenues are.Really? On page 127 its says that revenues were $96.242 billion in 2007 (and they even break it down by external and internal sales if the idiots at T.I cared to know).

T.I claims PDVSA doesn't disclose its production costs.Really? On page 127 it says they had $14.9 billion in operational costs in 2007.

T.I. claims PDVSA doesn't disclose its development and exploration costs.Really? They are on page 35 and for 2007 came to over $11 billion.

T.I. claims that PDVSA doesn't have its accounts done in accordance with international accounting standards.Really? On page 148 the auditors say the financial statement was prepared in accordance with "international accounting standards".

T.I. claims that PDVSA doesn't have an audit done by external auditors in accordance with international standards.Really? On page 148 we see that the financial statements were audited by Alcaraz, Cabrera, and Vazquez, the Venezuelan affiliate of the U.S. accounting firm KPMG and they clearly state that the audit was performed in accordance within "international auditing standards". I could go on and on with this but I think the point should be abundantly clear.Transparency International said that PDVSA has a "Low" level of transparency based on claims that information is not made public when in fact that very information is very easily found in a couple of minutes on PDVSA's web-site.

Clearly this report by Transparency International is fatally flawed and its conclusions cannot be taken as valid because they are based on data which is wrong.If Transparency Internional was a serious and honest organization they would retract this report, redo it, make sure they got their underlying data right, and then release a new ranking. Then, and only then, might this ranking be worth something.

How could they have messed this up so badly? Two things are worth noting.First, for some unknown reason Transparency International farmed out the actual data collection to consultants. From page 34 of the Tranparency International report:

The data were gathered by consultants. The data-gathering process did not include interviews with any of the executives or staff of the companies, but was based on desk-research of publically available company documentation.

Maybe that explains it - without actually speaking to any PDVSA staff the consultants couldn't figure out that to get financial information they should click on the "Informes Financieros" button on the web-page!! [As a side note, this use of un-named and un-accountable "consultants" bears an striking similarity to the bogus exit polls during the Venezuelan recall referendum carried under the name of a prominent U.S. polling firm but which turned out to have actually been done by the an stridently anti-Chavez NGO called SUMATE. Maybe T.I. like to be able to say "oops, not our fault, the consultants messed up"]

If you're Black in NYC don't smoke weed, weed is for whites like Michael Bloomberg

2008-05-09T01:02:00.007-04:00

In 2007 alone, there were 39,700 misdemeanor arrests for the possession of small amounts of marijuana. But such possession hasn't been a crime in New York State since the Marijuana Reform Act of 1977. Under that law, which is still in effect, an offender can usually expect to get only a ticket, punishable by a fine of not more than $100.

But most of the 353,000 New Yorkers arrested for having these small amounts from 1997 to 2006 got much more than a ticket: They were handcuffed, photographed, and fingerprinted, held overnight, arraigned in criminal court, plagued with permanent criminal records, and charged with the crime of having marijuana "burning or open to public view."

Since most of these people arrested had the pot hidden in a pocket, backpack, or purse, how did these stop-and-frisks turn into an arrest for "burning" marijuana" or having it "open to public view"?

As "Marijuana Arrest Crusade" demonstrates, this is done "by tricking and intimidating" suspects to take out the concealed marijuana, so that police officers can then claim they saw it "open to public view." In fact, a longtime Legal Aid supervisor quoted in the study says that this process happens "all the time." And such routine deception by the police to set someone up for arrest on a criminal-misdemeanor charge is perfectly legal.

There is much more detailed information in the report on the impact of these arrests, which—as described in last week's column— greatly and disproportionately affect black and Latino youths. Part 7, "Head Start for Unemployment and Prison," notes that these arrests "can limit the opportunity for young people to obtain employment and access to some schools, and for student aid."

The report also notes something that I've pointed out in this space before: "Mayor Bloomberg and other prominent politicians [and the FBI] have urged collecting DNA from everyone arrested for anything whatsoever, including, therefore, marijuana possession."

My main motivation as a reporter has never been to get "exclusives," but to get vital information out by all possible means. I hope this revelation of the NYPD's continuing disgrace will be read carefully by other reporters, legislators, and everyone else concerned with ending this racist crusade.-Nat Hentoff, Village Voice

http://ww4report.com/node/5451

It seems NYPD is violating the spirit and letter of New York's marijuana laws (fines and violation for small amounts of weed) when it comes to Black people.

Bob Marley

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Weed is a no-no for Blacks in NYC but not for whites.
http://ww4report.com/node/5451
NYC marijuana busts racist —surprise!
Submitted by WW4 Report on Wed, 05/07/2008 - 03:06.
In 1994, the first year of Rudolph Giuliani's initial term as mayor of New York, 3,400 people were arrested for marijuana possession in the city's five boroughs. By 2000, that number had swelled to 51,500. This period and the ensuing years, which have seen a continuation of this policy under Mayor Michael Bloomberg—39,400 people were arrested in New York for pot last year—has been officially dubbed the "Marijuana Arrest Crusade" by Harry G. Levine and Deborah Peterson Small in a thusly-named report, subtitled "Racial Bias and Police Policy in New York City 1997-2007."

"Because of its large size and high rate of arrest," Levine and Small write in the introduction to their report, "New York now arrests and jails more people for possessing marijuana than any other city in the United States, and more than any city in the world."

Bloomberg at Rikers

Sean Bell murdered, hypocrisy lives on

2008-05-09T00:56:00.004-04:00

Once again a court has ruled that when a New York cop feels afraid he may rapid fire dozens of bullets in any direction. That's the gist of the Sean Bell verdict as it was the gist of the Amadou Diallo verdict.

Of course cops fear black men, even black cops do. Mix this predisposition with alcohol and it's a serious problem. The scared cops who fired off fifty shots at three unarmed men had been drinking at the club, we'll never know how much they had been drinking because after the shooting their cohorts didn't give them a breathalizer to see if they were impaired, though the world knows that Sean Bell had twice the legal limit of blood alcohol for driving. According to Wikipedia, some of the cops shots " hit nearby homes and a train station. Five of the seven officers investigating the club were involved in the shooting. Detective Paul Headley fired one round, Officer Michael Carey fired three, Officer Marc Cooper fired four, Officer Gescard Isnora fired eleven, and Officer Michael Oliver fired thirty one times. [24][25][26]...Surveillance cameras at the Port Authority's Jamaica AirTrain station a half block away from the shooting site recorded one of the bullets fired by the officers shattering through the station's glass window and narrowly missing a civilian and two Port Authority patrolmen who were standing on the station's elevated platform.[20][31]"

Do cops drink on the job even when they are not doing undercover work in a bar or night club?
Here it is in the New York Daily News:
"SUSPEND DETECTIVES IN PARADE BOOZE RAP
BY ALISON GENDAR
Tuesday, June 14th 2005, 6:51AM
TWO NYPD detectives were suspended for drinking while on duty at the Puerto Rican Day Parade, cops said yesterday.
Detectives Edmond Olivacce and Bernard Dixon, both of Queens Narcotics, were working the parade in uniform near E. 76th St. and Fifth Ave..."

But most of them are fine upstanding selfless men who serve the community, right?

I dunno...

"THE SCANDAL AT MIDTOWN SOUTH: THE OVERVIEW; Police Used Brothel So Often, Madam Got Worried
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E00E7DD1330F93BA25754C0A96E958260&sec=&spon=
By DAN BARRY
Published: July 18, 1998
For as long as 15 years, New York police officers from the precinct responsible for eradicating much of the tawdriness from Times Square went to a neighborhood brothel for free sex, in uniform and while on duty, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and police officials acknowledged yesterday...

" One officer yesterday said the sexual activity was common knowledge in Midtown South. 'Look, everyone in here knew about it,'' said a six-year veteran of the precinct, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ''We called it 'the apartment.' Should the bosses have known? Probably. But it's not like people are going to tell them. Not like these guys were dealing with drug dealers or hit men. They weren't hurting anyone. It was no big deal.'
Investigators said that officers even held occasional parties at the brothel, and that as many as 20 officers from Midtown South attended one such affair. "

The whole of Midtown South had to know about this. For one thing, in stead of patrolling the cops were sleeping, drinking beer and screwing gratis undocumented Mexican women who retained all of two hundred dollars a week for themselves.

So here we have a protitution investigation turn into a fifty shot disaster.

You know it's common knowledge that the upscale strip clubs of Manhattan are brothels where sex is sold and drugs can be located. Not to mention the underground...

Put five boozed up detectives with license to kill if scared, in the Hustler Club, or Scores, or Hot Lap Dance Club and see how that flies in the New York Times editorial boardroom...

Put four potentially frightened cops on a rush hour subway platform, give them automatic weapons and dogs that bite and that's a really serious problem. Michael Bloomberg thinks it's a good thing to do. And Michael Bloomberg rides the subway.

Michael Bloomberg has lots of opinions. He says it's okay that construction work proceed in spite of numerous serious safety violations.

Bloomberg's crazy rule that school kids' cell phones can be confiscated was being quietly ignored and circumvented by school officials on the ground who have schools to run, rather than a big mouth to run. Ultimately the usually servile New York City Council overturned his billionaire arrogant, no idea of what life is like, head up his ass, stupid rule.

More about prostitution and such:

Anyone with a brain knows that Eliot Spitzer was brought down and given a fate perhaps worse than death (he has kids for God's sake!) in his public humiliation not because he had sex with protitutes but because he messed with some very big boys.

My question is this: If Eliot Spitzer was customer number nine at the Emperor's Club online brothel, who were customers one through eight? Ten through twenty? Does it matter? Why should police, prosecutors and judges concern themselves with private activity among consenting adults? Now the cops who abused the Mexican slave women for fiteen years, they should have gone to prison for a long long time, but when an adult woman (or man) decides that s/he wants to trade sex for money why should that concern the government?

Isn't it a stupid wate of time to chase down these women (and men) and lock them up? Isn't it cruel?

And given the state of New York's economy (job growth negative, the main money coming in is from overseas, tourism is more and more important) why shouldn't we have a zone here to put Nevada and Amsterdam in the shade? Add to that decriminalizing marijuana, at least in a given zone like it used to be in Manhattan, and we'd have to build more hotels and another airport to accomodate the Europeans and others anxious to enjoy our cheap dollar and what it can buy. (Let's hope that by that time the Buildings Department actually protects the public and construction worklers).

My sympathy is with Sean Bell, his family, his friends, those who love him still. It's crazy and it's scary and it has to be changed, but it's legal for cops to shoot wildly when firghtened, even after drinking.

Dancer

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NYPD like wine, women, song, shooting

Mike Bloomberg, buyer of sex, weed

2008-05-09T00:52:00.001-04:00

"I like theater, dining and chasing women. Let me put it this way: I am a single, straight billionaire in Manhattan. What do you think? It's a wet dream." Michael Bloomberg

Was it because he is a big strapping handsome man, so charming, so debonaire, so witty and likable that the life of Michael Bloomberg was (supposedly in the past as he described it) "a wet dream"?

(Mike is a scrawny little pipsqueek who was sued, (and had to settle) for harrassing female subordinates).

Why does Mike still have this "good guy" image? Could it be because no one, least of all a journalist, wants to be on the shit list of a man with five billion dollars and a media empire?
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11274669/bloomberg_08_can_a_republican_mayor_of_new_york_take_the_white_house
Asked whether he's ever smoked pot, he beams and says, "You bet I did! And I enjoyed it." Pressed to reiterate his working-class roots, so voters will forgive him for being a billionaire, he refuses. "In New York City politics, there's a race to the bottom: 'My mother washed more floors than your mother, for less money.' I mean, come on." Bloomberg behaves like someone who believes he has discovered an alternate political physics, one where the normal rules don't apply.

2008-05-09T00:49:00.001-04:00

Get A Life, Be Happy
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/Terrorism.New.York.2.244966.html

Bloomberg On JFK Plot: 'Stop Worrying, Get A Life'
Featured Slideshow: Gossip! Latest Celebrity Tabloid Rumors
by Marcia Kramer NEW YORK (CBS) ― While questions continue to arise about the alleged plot to blow up a fuel pipeline beneath JFK Airport and surrounding neighborhoods, some are questioning why New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg hasn't had a louder voice since the plot was foiled on Saturday.On Monday, Bloomberg finally weighed in, but his response was not what some would have expected."There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life," he said.

Giuliani's private, personal religion.

2008-05-09T00:40:00.002-04:00

Black and White Nude

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Does Giuliani like this stuff?
No one loves the spotlight more than New York's ex-mayor Rudy Giuliani, and of course not just anyone was at St. Patrick's Cathedral last week with Pope Bededict. It just so happens that the Cardinal of Rudy's church in these parts, a man named Egan, had told Rudy, or got Rudy to agree, not to ever take Holy Communion. Catholics have their beliefs. One is that abortion is a sin and that if the Cardinal says you can't take the Church's communion, well you can't. Rudy advocates a woman's right to have an abortion. I happen to agree with him, but I don't go around calling myself a Roman Catholic and I don't sneak or seek communion of the Catholic Church. But Rudy couldn't resist and so a priest who hadn't gotten the memo let Rudy sneak communion at the Cathedral when the Pope was there.

Rudy, bad boy! And since Rudy made the agreement he just broke in public with Cardinal Egan he's gone on to have a very public open adulterous affair and then gone and divorced his second wife to marry his adulterous consort. No problem with me and my personal religion but all no-no's for good Catholics who take communion.

Rudy has a right to his private personal religion and the Catholic Church has a right to decide who takes its communion and who is and is not a good Catholic. Giuliani, though, is shameless.

Or Does Giuliani like this stuff? Or maybe both?

"Suicide" Madam about her imminent demise, US prisons

2008-05-09T00:00:00.004-04:00

Loaded - Peep Show

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Most men like this stuff, like it alot, but Eliot Spitzer has been destroyed, his wife and children traumatized, Deborah Jeane Palfrey either driven to suicide for her knowledge of the horrors of the US prison system that awaited her or else perhaps murdered, while clients one through eight in the Spitzer case are anonymous and Senator Vitter continues his "service."

DC Madam Predicted She Would Be Suicided Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Thursday, May 1, 2008DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey predicted she would be “suicided” on several occasions both recently and as far back as 17 years ago - comments that now appear ominous in light of the announcement that the former head of a Washington escort service allegedly killed herself today.
“If taken into custody, my physical safety and most probably my very life would be jeopardized,” she wrote in August 1991 following an attempt to bring her to trial, “Rape, beating, maiming, disfigurement and more than likely murder disguised in the form of just another jailhouse accident or suicide would await me,” said Palfrey in a handwritten letter to the judge accusing the San Diego police vice squad of having a vendetta against her.
During several recent appearances on The Alex Jones Show, Palfrey also said that she was at risk of being killed and that authorities would make it look like suicide. She made it clear that she was not suicidal and if she was found dead it would be murder.
Palfrey had threatened to release the names of well-known clients of her upscale call girl ring in the nation’s capitol, and had indicated that Dick Cheney may be one of them.
“No I’m not planning to commit suicide,” Palfrey told The Alex Jones Show on her last appearance, “I’m planning on going into court and defending myself vigorously and exposing the government,” she said.
Developing…..
////////////

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24468091/

If indeed Ms. Palfrey was driven to suicide it is still a form of murder. While Ms. Palfrey faced a horrible prospect of imprisonment and all the violence and degradation she already knew goes with that in the USA, while her clients were getting away scott free, even remaining in the US Senate.

Here's food for thought:
Eliot Spitzer, a crusader against Wall Street corruption, Jewish but married to a Baptist, he clearly has a weakness for sex with young women with no emotional strings attached as does God Fearing Republican Senator Vitter who is "sorry" "repentant" and a good ole boy...

A Solicitation in Support of Genocide

2008-05-08T23:59:00.001-04:00

Is it not the goal of the Wiesenthal Center to “Never Forget”? Should that Center be concerned that a small but powerful group in Israel has executed plans to deprive Palestinians of their homes, their natural resources, their way of life, and their lives? Should that Center be working to change the government in Israel so that a new and peaceful agenda could be enacted? Should this Center that claims to be a champion of the oppressed demand of the United Nations that the Israeli government obey the resolutions that have been brought against it for its illegal actions, all 160 of them passed by the UNGA and 30 passed by the UNSC? Should the Wiesenthal Center be the first to recognize that Israel is not an equal among nations since it has defied every civilized international law of aggression, occupation and oppression in its dealings with the Palestinian people, the central tenets of the Geneva Accords, and the humanitarian doctrine all nations of the UN have accepted, the International Declaration of Human Rights? It should. That is its purpose, not the justification of evil. - Dr. Bill Cook

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

William A. Cook
World Prout Assembly
March 22, 2008

03/22/08 - "World Prout Assembly" - Within days of the fifth anniversary of “Shock and Awe,” I received a solicitation from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to help “Combat Global Hate against the Jewish People.” Rabbi Marvin Heir, Dean and Founder of the Center, presents a frightening picture of “institutionalized hate” that “has Jews feeling threatened and demonized. Many living in fear.” He decries in militaristic terms the “blatant attack” on Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State, the “growing campaign against Israel” that “equates Zionism with racism and urges the elimination of the Zionist movement.” He then declares that the Wiesenthal Center “will go head-to-head with the haters and extremists, fighting their lies with truth,” from every one of their headquarters in Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Paris, Buenos Aires and Jerusalem.” With the forces of the Wiesenthal Center and its headquarters around the globe enlisted “…we can stand … in this noble –and absolutely crucial – battle against the forces of hate. This is a struggle none of us can afford to lose.”

Would that the good Rabbi sought our love, concern, and compassion for all the afflicted on the earth; sought to mobilize human sympathy for the oppressed, the homeless, and the starving; sought to ignite heartfelt passion for beliefs that unite, not divide; sought a dialogue with those that see exclusivity a danger, not something to be celebrated; sought to bring together those that find fault with disproportionate force used against the defenseless; sought to understand the dishonesty of those that defy International Law and the Resolutions of the United Nations while they exert pressure to blunt criticism of that defiance; sought to seek solutions with those who criticize the actions of the Israeli State since they see injustice in Israel’s occupation of Palestine; sought to create an atmosphere that encourages dialogue the better to find solutions, not an atmosphere of conflict; sought, in short, the truth.

Seven years ago, before the regimes of Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush took power, the Wiesenthal Center had no need for such a solicitation. Seven years ago before Sharon and his entourage of 1000 desecrated the al Aqsa Mosque, before the explosion of illegal settlements poured over 400,000 immigrants on to Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza, before Sharon’s introduction of the lawless State that rid itself of rights of due process reverting to the barbaric practice of assassinations without arrest or trial by jury(228 targeted and 377 ‘accidentally killed), before the erection of the heinous, inhumane, and illegal Wall of Fear, before the exertion of disproportionate force that has cost the lives of 2400 infants each year in Palestine through deliberate, intentional and war criminal actions (see UNICEF website), before 4,604 Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers since September 29, 2000, a number greater than America’s loss of soldiers in Iraq, most of them civilians (2113-3044), many of them children (982) [figures from B’tselem], before Sharon’s ruthless siege with attending massacres of Jenin and Rafah, before his merciless killing of a wheelchair bound blind quadriplegic cleric in a crowded street as he and his hapless friends emerged from a Mosque after prayers, before indifference to human life became the standard of the Israel government that inflicted ID cards, colored license plates, 500 check points, humiliating lines to force delays, babies delivered in the streets because the mother was denied an ambulance, before racism became imbedded in the IDF mentality, before George W. Bush released Sharon to his savagery, there was no outcry of anti-Semitism against Jews, only that inflicted on their Semite brothers and sisters in Palestine.

Given this litany of inhumane behavior inflicted by the State of Israel on a population that has been systematically squeezed into ever smaller Bantustans of overcrowded, dilapidated, rubble strewn landscapes, deprived of water and sanitation, deprived of control of their own lives and resources since all ingress and egress is controlled by the occupying forces, since their economy has been trashed and unemployment has risen above 50% in the West Bank and 70% in Gaza, since they have no military forces, no government that is allowed to govern without US and Israeli intervention, and no access to the outside world, can anyone not expect normal people who seek knowledge about the oppression of the Palestinian people to be critical of the Zionist Israeli government and of the Jews that do not criticize?

Today as I write this account, Gaza remains under siege. Yet here is a Guardian report from January 23, 2008, a month ago. Add two month’s horror to this picture. “Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and – some would say – encouragement of the international community. An international community that professes to uphold the inherent dignity of every human being must not allow this to happen.” (Karen Konig AbuZayd in Gaza City). Who is responsible for this human disaster? The Jews of Israel. Who knows the suffering of forced imprisonment, starvation, torture and death? The Jews of Israel. Who proclaims a religion enriched by a moral strength that finds compassion the route to survival with all peoples? The Jews of Israel. Why then this unparalleled effort to destroy? Why this heinous approach that suffocates slowly, acid-like as it eats away at the mind and emotions of its victims, calculatingly punishing the infant, the young, the mother, the elderly, the infirm –an indifference as brutal as any undertaken by the most barbaric civilizations our planet has ever experienced. Why the Jews? Why now? What horror has undermined their faith, turned it into a killing machine that turns a blind eye to the entreaties of the world that they have mercy on the Palestinians?

“Israeli officials have publically embraced and defended their totalitarian policies of cutting off electricity generation in the Gaza strip, thus drastically reducing or eliminating the supply of safe water, halting all sewage treatment, electricity for hospitals, refrigerators, food and vaccine storage, home, and school and business lighting. The Israeli Supreme Court has approved this policy of mass, brutal collective punishment of over 1.4 million people. (Harretz, February 2, 2008).” (James Petras, February 2008, War without End). The Supreme Court is not alone in approving collective punishment; Harretz marks this remarkable occurrence: “ … several rabbis led by Rabbi Lior have issued a precedent setting halakhic ruling that Israel must shoot civilian populations in areas from whence attacks on Jewish communities originate.” (20/03/2008).

There exists, however, true Jews, those that know the value of life because they and their families have suffered severely to maintain it. Gideon Polya, an editor with MWC News, writes “Comparison of the Palestinian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust in Hungary is appropriate.” And he continues, “Whereas the Jewish Holocaust involved rapid, anti-Jewish anti-Semitic, race based extermination for Nazi and Nazi collaborator benefit and gratification, the Palestinian Genocide has involved slow, anti-Arab anti-Semitic, ethnic cleansing for Zionist lebensraum.” This from a man that in his own words is “… an anti-racist, humanitarian, agnostic, Humanist scientist whose family has suffered racist genocide, dispossession and exile.” (MWC News, February 2008).

The Jerusalem Post reported in January that “The United Nations Human Rights Council condemned Israel for the 15th time in less than two years on Thursday.” Yitzhak Levanon, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, commented on this development, “We have witnessed another round of the circus…I think that this is a farce.” How unfortunate that the Israeli State feels chagrined to be castigated by its inferiors; perhaps it should reflect on its behavior in Gaza, to put its actions in parallel with those they suffered under the German genocide and ask themselves to remember, for that was their admonishment to the world in 1945.

And the world community responded on behalf of the Jews who suffered under Hitler even to the point of providing them a homeland? “Never forget,” they were admonished, and they did not. They look now at another people that have been systematically expelled, murdered, imprisoned without charge, tortured, and brutally slaughtered with the most horrible of weapons including unmanned bulldozers that demolish their homes, unmanned planes that fire missiles down crowded streets and into apartment buildings, depleted uranium, white phosphorus, and cluster bombs, and they remember, “Never forget!” Never forget” lest this population, the Palestinians and the Lebanese, find themselves ethnically cleansed from their respective homelands to satisfy the Zionist agenda to turn these lands into greater Israel.

Why criticize the critics of Israel? Praise them. They have accepted the admonition of the real Jews, “Never Forget.” They have made public a brutal and calculated ethnic cleansing that exposes the Zionist forces that control in Israel, control not just the Palestinians and the press but the Jews themselves. That reality has been their modus operandi since 1939 when they turned against their benefactors, the British Mandate government that had made possible the implementation of the Balfour Declaration without which Israel would not exist. To deny this history is to deny the facts as presented in recent histories of Palestine by Israeli historians using the State archives, historians like Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe, and the corroborating documents from the Rhodes House Library of the Bodleian that uses seized Jewish documents to corroborate their investigative reports. These archival documents contain the official ethnic cleansing plans of the Zionist “Consultancy” that ruled in Palestine, a determined system of attack, killing, expulsion, and destruction of the Palestinian homeland.

No laws of the British mandate government, no international laws or agreements, no regulations enacted or imposed by the Yishuv or Jewish Agency could make the Zionist forces conform against their will. No law but Zionist law. Today’s Israeli government has individuals in it like Avigdor Lieberman who proclaim these same objectives. Indeed, a number of political parties hold to expulsion of the Arabs from the land of Palestine by force if necessary. Critics of Israel point to a danger in the world for Arabs, a concerted and systematized racist agenda to inflict harm on the Islamic people.

Is it not the goal of the Wiesenthal Center to “Never Forget”? Should that Center be concerned that a small but powerful group in Israel has executed plans to deprive Palestinians of their homes, their natural resources, their way of life, and their lives? Should that Center be working to change the government in Israel so that a new and peaceful agenda could be enacted? Should this Center that claims to be a champion of the oppressed demand of the United Nations that the Israeli government obey the resolutions that have been brought against it for its illegal actions, all 160 of them passed by the UNGA and 30 passed by the UNSC? Should the Wiesenthal Center be the first to recognize that Israel is not an equal among nations since it has defied every civilized international law of aggression, occupation and oppression in its dealings with the Palestinian people, the central tenets of the Geneva Accords, and the humanitarian doctrine all nations of the UN have accepted, the International Declaration of Human Rights? It should. That is its purpose, not the justification of evil.

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Israel's "Right to Exist"

2008-05-08T15:22:00.005-04:00

Israel and its mouthpieces around the world demand that Hamas recognize a "right to exist" for the Jews Only State called Israel.

Hamas, which is not a government or a State, says that it is willing to enter a truce period with Israel and during the truce to live side by side with Israel, within its generally recognized international boundaries. These of course exclude the territories called the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem (an internationally recognized "international city")

No State has a "right to exist", let alone a racist one built on the dispossession of inhabitants, and the making into stateless people millions of natives.

Did Yugoslavia have a right to exist?

Did the German Democratic Republic have a right to exist?

Czechoslovakia?

Does Mexico have a "right" to Texas? California? Colorado? Utah? Arizona? New Mexico?

If one considers that all the land ruled by Israel is in fact Israel, then Jews are a minority there. Why should Jews have special rights there? Why should Jews living anywhere on earth, even Harlem, be able to claim citizenship to Israel "by right?" I have renounced my "right" to be an Israeli here on this blog:
http://fatoldjewishguywholivesintheprojects.blogspot.com/2005/12/about-my-right-to-return.html

So Israel, or "Israel" or "Jews Only State" I guess some sort of congratulations are in order, you've made it to sixty years in "existence." Yeah, mazeltov. If your leaders are intelligent, they'll take up Hamas' truce offer and then "Israel" and Palestine could live side by side just like North and South Korea, or China and Taiwan. You'd have time to come to terms with your neighbors by your deeds.

Are You Desperate Enough To Be A Child Protective Specialist?

2008-05-07T14:49:00.006-04:00

If you ride the subway in New York you may have seen the ads, and they're online too. New York City's Administration For Children's Services is once again on the lookout for cannon fodder, frontline troops in their war against parental rights and authority, the poor and "minority" communities.

If you are considering becoming a Child Protective Specialist why not first ask people in the community if they respect ACS, if they respect the people who work for ACS and if they believe that ACS serves the interests of New York City's children? Don't ask on East End Avenue or West End Avenue, because ACS just about never impinges on the well to do. Ask people who are shopping on Fulton Street in Brooklyn, or Fordham Road in The Bronx, or living in the housing projects which are the last refuges of the poor in Manhattan.

Google "John Mattingly is not Don Mattingly".
Read the Essence Magazine article on ACS and what it did to helpess children .
Read about their lawlessness. Ask your City Council representative what happened to the investigation of this scandal. Ask yourself if you want to be associated with the organization that snatched hundreds of kids, ran experiments on them and cannot even give a credible number of how many kids they did this to.

Ask school teachers and guidance counselors if they respect ACS. Ask Emergency Room staff if they respect ACS. Ask people who work at ACs and are feverishly sending out resumes. Ask John Mattingly why ACS cannot retain its frontline staff.

If you are thinking about working at ACS, especially about becoming a "Child Protective Specialist" you should ask questions, and think again.

PS- I'll bet that in two years more than half of the staff they used for their commercials will be gone.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/acs/html/career/work_cps_ads.shtml

MAY DAY, "MADE IN THE USA"

2008-05-01T23:54:00.000-04:00

Thursday, May 1, 2008

When the immigrant-rights movement chose May Day for its big demonstrations last year, people shouldn't have been surprised. The worldwide workers' holiday was "Made in the U.S.A."

May Day's roots are deep in American history. In 1886, seeking the spark that would ignite the struggling labor movement, the fledgling American Federation of Labor called a general strike for the eight-hour day to begin on May Day, the carpenters' traditional day for setting wages and conditions.

As young men in the 1870s, AFL leaders like Sam Gompers and the Carpenters' P.J. McGuire -- both members of immigrant families in New York -- had seen a long building trades strike win the eight-hour-day, then lose it in the Crash of 1872. They also knew that the 10-hour day, won in the Philadelphia general strike of 1835, had energized labor before the Civil War.

With the expansion of the railroads, what had once been local and regional labor markets had become national. And by the 1880s it made sense to call for a national general strike for the eight-hour day.

Since wages were then paid by the day, not by the hour, such a strike would reduce working hours at a full day's pay. And that would leave working people more time for their families, for bettering themselves, and for taking an active part in politics.

The AFL's call indeed unleashed a popular movement across America, well beyond its means to control. In that era, the Knights of Labor was by far the strongest labor federation in the U.S., but its leaders did not endorse the strike. As a result many members and lodges abandoned the Knights.

As the first national action for the eight-hour day, the 1886 strike had international significance. All the world was watching on May 1st, when the walkout brought much of the nation's work to a halt. It watched as, acting for the employers -- for capital -- Chicago police killed strikers on May 3 and again in the Haymarket affair on May 4, then rounded up a number of the city's leftist labor leaders and put them on trial, executing four. (A fifth killed himself before execution.) At the request of the AFL in 1889, the world labor movement adopted May Day as its international holiday.

All that has been written out of most American history books. They also omit that organized labor -- P.J. McGuire again in the fore -- unilaterally declared our first Labor Day as a show of strength in New York in September, 1882. We can be proud of that, too.

But we are denied an important part of our heritage by not celebrating May Day. We can be grateful that another generation of immigrant workers, demanding their rights, should have reminded us of that fact. Now we can all move to reclaim what is collectively ours.

Boys Gone Wild(ing)

2008-05-01T00:45:00.001-04:00

http://www.nycpba.org/archive/ch/07/ch-070629-breath.html

Cops Unions Fight Drug, Alcohol Testing

June 29, 2007
Bill May Avert Breathalyzer Tests for Cops
Unions Hope Spitzer Curbs Kelly Right To Discipline
By REUVEN BLAU
The State Legislature June 22 passed a measure designed to reduce the Police Commissioner's power over disciplinary matters, which could enable the police unions to block the NYPD's move to have all officers who fire their guns when it involves injury or death to take Breathalyzer tests.

People tell me I ought to write a book

2008-02-08T14:29:00.002-05:00

And a lot of the book is on this blog, so I am starting to take those posts down.

AllState has finally sent me my check for lost wages dating to August 24, 2007. It covers ten weeks and although it is in fact a pittance this is what the law allows. My settlement check is going to be around $16,000 and I expect to see it by April Fools Day. They still owe me for transportation to and from doctors and physical therapy and refuse to pay a couple of doctors bills. My plan is to sue them in small claims court once I get the $16,000, including suing the insurance adjuster personally.

Child's eye view of foster care

2008-01-17T12:50:00.002-05:00

HOW AND WHAT I AM DOING, the not so good hands of ALLSTATE

2007-12-25T16:43:00.000-05:00

As some of you know I was hit by a car on August 24. Since that time ALLSTATE insurance has only compensated me for a wheelchair and two bottles of pain killer. No money for transportation to and from doctors. No lost wages. Because of them I was forced to return to work prematurely. I suffer pain at work. I was originally set to rest and receive treatment until at least December 1. I had to request a doctor write a note saying I could return to work on November 2 because I am broke and on the verge of bankruptcy having lost ten weeks of work with absolutely no compensation save my monthly pension of $ 692 a month. During November I spent a few days active at court for Amber James but now thuis is no longer an option.

Additionally ACS staff has managed to scare the devil out of my wife and step children by sending police to our home with a claim that the children had been reported missing, by an anonymous letter to our house and by a post on the internet that violated my wife and stepchildren's confidentiality.

I am hoping to get my money from ALLSTATE eventually. I am hoping to be able to rest and resume physical therapy, as I feel my conditiion is worsening, not improving. I cannot simply disregard the fears of the people I live with. I am torn because I feel that I have something important to say about the kidnapping of children by the government. I feel an absolute compulsion to fight the no good bastards. My wife and step children have in their lives suffered much abuse and also as matter of course, having been homeless and poor, and with medical issues on top of that, came under Administration for Children's Services gun and almost were torn assunder. This is what ACS does. Destroys, intimidates, lies.

ACS Commissioner John Mattingly is a liar.

2007-12-25T16:40:00.000-05:00

MATTINGLY COULD JUST AS EASILY WITHDRAW THE CHARGES AND RELEASE THE VICTIM SIX YEAR OLD AMBER JAMES AS HE COULD SCRATCH HIS HEAD. HE WOULD LIKE THE WORLD TO THINK HE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT IS HAPPPENING TO AMBER JAMES, BUT GUESS WHAT? HE IS RESPONSIBLE.

Mother makes desperate plea to child welfare agency for return of daughter

BY JESS WISLOSKI

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, December 6th 2007, 4:00 AM
The mother of a 6-year-old girl in city custody on allegations that her parents are mentally ill Wednesday made an emotional plea directly to the head of the city child welfare agency.
More than three months after Amber James was taken from her South Ozone Park home, her frustrated mom confronted city Administration for Children's Services Commissioner John Mattingly at a public conference on the agency's ongoing reforms.
"ACS has kidnapped my daughter wrongfully!" Vanessa James, 41, said at the gathering at the New School in Manhattan.
A pediatrician reported Vanessa James to authorities over concerns that she may suffer from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a rare disease where a parent believes the child is sick - or makes them sick - to get attention.
Vanessa James and her husband, Marvin James, 48, have been to numerous court hearings since Amber was placed into the foster care system on Aug. 23. But they have not been charged with any crime, and neither has been found to be mentally ill.
"They found us innocent," Vanessa James said to Mattingly during the question-and-answer portion of the panel discussion.
"My daughter's being held prisoner," the desperate mother said. "What do we do now?"
After she made charges that her daughter has been abused while in foster care, Vanessa James was interrupted by the panel's moderator, who asked Mattingly to respond.
"I can feel the hurt in your voice," Mattingly said. "I know about this situation. I know it's in court and hearings have been held and will be held. ... It is up to the court to make the future decisions."
Amber's case has become a public tug-of-war between her parents and the ACS since the Daily News first reported the family's plight in September.
Ironically, yesterday's forum was largely devoted to announcing an ACS pilot program to increase family services and reduce foster-care placements.
After Vanessa James' plea, several welfare workers attending the forum referred to Amber's case as an example of the ongoing problems at ACS.
"Children are being abused" in foster care, said Sharonne Salaam of People United for Children, an advocacy group. Yet ACS has failed to crack down on foster care abuse, she charged.
Susan Loeb, of Voices of Women, said the ACS hotline is often abused.
"Malicious reports are an epidemic in many communities," Loeb said. "Anyone with an ax to grind can call, without any real consequences."
jwisloski@nydailynews.com