I got a check for $400 from Mike Bloomberg yesterday. He's so thoughtful! It came right in the nick of time, too: all those start of the month bills were piling up. What timing.

What timing, indeed. The general election is one month away, and it's not like that good-for-nothing Freedy Ferrer can afford to cut a check that fat for every voter. However, unlike last year's property tax rebate, this check wasn't signed by the Mayor. City ethics rules prevent a candidate's name from appearing in a high profile city-funded mailing such as this within 90 days of the election.

It's a nice nod to ethics, but how are the last 90 days supposed to counter-balance an entire term spent plastering the incumbent's name and face all over government funded mailings, tv ads and billboards? All politicians do this. George Pataki can be heard extolling the beauty of New York in tourism ads, and crowing about health care for tots in PSA's. In the town of Hempstead (where, yes, I have been spending an awful lot of time), the blasted name Kate Murray is ubiquitous. Her ads are everywhere. Her name appears on every town building, van, pamphlet - you name it. Seniors, got a problem? Call Kate Murray's senior hotline.

The spoils of office have been exploited since the earliest days of cities and party politics. Tammany Hall hacks famously gave out free turkeys at Thanksgiving to maintain the loyal votes of poor voters. So why mask it with this veneer of fairness in the very late days of the election campaign? Just put the mayor's name and face at the top of the ballot, along with a special message from him saying "these elections are the city's way of thanking you for keeping New York City strong during difficult times."  read more »

Wal-Mart No Way's ad is now on the air. The ad, "The Real Costs of Wal-Mart," is airing on NY1, but you can view it here.

And be sure to call Mayor Mike at 311 to say Wal-Mart No Way!

www.shaunrichman.org

Anthony Weiner's concession in advance of the Democratic primary run-off is the best possible result of Tuesday's election, and not least of which because I have no intention of voting for Whitey (whatever name he may go by).

Freddy Ferrer, whose campaign has been rather timid until now, deserves the chance to finally take on Mayor Mike directly, without diminished strength and campaign funds. His "two New Yorks" theme from four years ago was exactly the message that voters deserved, and I will always appreciate that Freddy didn't back down on September 12, insisting that nothing had changed. We still had then, and still have now after four years of Bloomberg, a city of inconceivable riches that is pushing its poor and desperate farther out into the margins. If Freddy campaigns like a populist from now until November, our CEO Mayor may yet get fired.

Better yet, the possibility of wasting $12 million in taxpayer money on an unnecessary run-off election opens the possibility for significant election reform. It's time to put proportional representation back on the agenda. Taxpayer outrage was a significant, if not primary, factor in San Francisco's recent switch to instant run-off voting (elections by ranked ballot, where the votes for the lowest vote-getting candidate are redistributed to the next choice listed on each ballot until a candidate finally achieves a majority vote). It could be here, too. The gradual demographic shifts in the city virtually ensure lots more run-off elections, with a splintered, Balkanized electorate unable to elect majority candidates.  read more »

The column that I was hired to write for a certain Queens weekly has been canceled before the first piece was even published. That piece, a critical look at the fall-out from Congressman Greg Meeks' support for CAFTA, did not appear in this past Thursday's issue, although an editorial lavishing praise on the Congressman for his championing of banks over people, was featured rather prominently.

I called to find out what happened, and was told the next day that Rep. Meeks had called the newspaper to complain about the previous post that appeared on this blarg. That's all, she wrote.

The managing editor - who hired me - explained over and over that "integrity" is really important to the paper, and that I had really crossed a line by posting the Congressman's voicemail message to me, without explaining that I had called him first. Of course, I explained that I hadn't called him, and that that's what made his personal phone call to me so noteworthy, and odd. She explained that she hadn't actually read the piece so much as glanced at it over the shoulder of the publisher, who was livid about the whole affair. (The publisher, it should be noted, was hectoring me about how labor's position on CAFTA was "illiberal" within seconds of my being hired and explaining my first column.) She also hadn't read the actual submitted column itself.  read more »

On July 27, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed CAFTA by a vote of 217 to 215, thanks to 15 Democrats who went to the other side and voted with the Bush regime for multinational corporate interests. My representative, Gregory Meeks was one of the "CAFTA 15".

Like any good citizen, I called his office before the vote to express my opposition to the bill. Now that the bill has passed, I have a new card to play. I have recently been hired to write a new bi-weekly column for the Times Ledger newspaper group in Queens (Queens' largest community newspaper, with over 50,000 paid subscribers). My first article should appear either this Thursday or next and will focus on the fallout from Meeks' vote.

On Sunday, I attended a press conference organized by the Working Families party, and attended by representatives of labor unions in the AFL-CIO and Change to Win. After the press conference, when I was done asking a few follow-up questions to Brian McLaughlin, I was approached by Rep. Meeks' Communications Director, who was apparently hanging out in the back of the press conference to make sure that reporters came away with Rep. Meeks' position. I've received his earlier statements, but I accepted her new materials and incorporated part of Meeks' justification in my column (the particularly lame complaint "Despite the fact that CAFTA is by no means a perfect agreement, voting it down was not a valid option because it would not subsequently be replaced by a perfect agreement"). She wanted to get me more material, but my deadline was essentially later that night.  read more »