From Current TV:

It is important to note that THIS IS NOT A NEW TACTIC BY THE NYPD. Back in 2004 I saw plainclothes cops on motor scooters pull right up to a crowd of protesters and then start pushing right into the crowd with their scooters. THIS WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN. It is also important to note that in this case the cop ran over a neutral legal observer, NOT a protester. That is equivalent to attacking a UN observer.

I stopped off at Occupy Wall Street today with my son. We went to look around. Walked around the park then started heading back to the subway. We were waiting at a light to cross. Suddenly about a dozen cops on the same scooters came up and started crossing in front of us. They came out of nowhere and lined up right next to the protesters. As I saw them coming I pulled my son back without thinking (we were not in the street but I still reacted this way) and said, "Be careful, the cops on motor scooters are dangerous. They ran over a man yesterday."

My son was shocked and I noticed one of the cops on the scooters looked at me with what seemed like a sad, almost tearful expression. This incident is wrong and it will drive a wedge between cops and people like me who usually support the cops.

It has been nearly a year since the city stupidly closed St. Vincent's hospital in Manhattan. Hospitals routinely lose money, mostly because of their emergency room and ICU care since these facilities are designed specifically to save lives rather than make money. I know this from having worked in hospitals as a researcher and working with physicians. So hospitals make money through other aspects of their care, but lose gobs of money when they take emergency and critical care cases. Our healthcare system, which leaves a substantial number of people uninsured and therefore dependent on emergency rooms for more routine care, puts added stress on our hospitals. So the ideal way to fix the system is with single payer healthcare. That would take the unnecessary burden off our emergency rooms and hence our hospitals. Too bad the Republicans refuse to do that.

Then we have idiots like Bloomberg who feel that a hospital has to make money or be closed down. Let's remember something: the goal of a hospital is to save lives, not make money. But the more important ECONOMIC fact that Bloomberg ignores is that when you close a hospital like St. Vincent's, you are taking away an emergency room, and that means that those patients who would normally go to that emergency room now either do not get any care, or they go to another hospital. That puts MORE of a burden on other hospital emergency rooms making THEIR financial situation worse. It is a dangerous spiral where you essentially make all hospitals worse off every single time you close one hospital. It is STUPID. Yet that is our system. We need better, not worse, hospital coverage in NYC. One local activist, Yetta Kurland, has been on top of this.

This comes from Yetta Kurland:  read more »

This comes from Yetta Kurland, one of the number one advocates for keeping hospitals open in lower Manhattan:

Dear Neighbor,

I hope you will join me on Thursday July 15th for the next St. Vincent's Omnibus Committee Meeting which will take place at 6:30pm at PS 41 located at 116 West 11th Street.

Last month we tried without much success to engage the Committee in a discussion on how we could get a hospital at the St. Vincent's site. While we were unsuccessful in having at that discussion last month, the Chair Brad Hoylman assured us that he would be willing to have that discussion with us in the future. It is our hopes that this will happen this Thursday.

Please tell your friends and join me. The St. Vincent's Omnibus Committee is part of Community Board 2 which oversees the St. Vincent's site. The Community Board could be incredibly influential if it chose to take a stance on this issue as it has great power in the land use process which is central to the fate of the hospital.  read more »

Yetta Kurland, who is rapidly gaining on incumbent, Christine "Bloomberg" Quinn, is having a hard time debating Christine Quinn because Quinn seems too scared to debate. Quinn has been a no show to four debates, showing not only her fear of debating Kurland, but also he disdain for the community she claims to represent. This comes from the Kurland campaign:

'Speaker Quinn Ducks Out Of Four Important Debates on Issues she Claims Leadership on in Her Platform for Re-Election Including Education, LGBT Youth, Good Government and Community Preservation'

New York, NY. Tuesday, September 6, 2009. Yetta Kurland, whose opponent is Christine Quinn in the hotly contested City Council race in the 3rd District, expressed outrage at Quinn's refusal to show up to four consecutive debates on central issues to the community.

"These debates highlighted key issues in the District, and issues Quinn has staked her re-election bid on claiming leadership in. Yet she is totally absent when it comes time for the community to ask her hard questions on what has really happened under her tenure as City Council representative for the 3rd District, and when its time to tell the community where she stands on education, LGBT youth, good government and historic preservation. How dare she claim to be a leader in these issues when she won't even show up to talk face to face with the people in our district about these issues?"

One of the forums Quinn ducked on was held last week at FIERCE, an LGBT youth advocacy organization. Kurland stated at the forum "I am saddened that [Quinn] is not here, LGBTQ youth have been ignored for too long. And you deserve to have all three of the candidates here tonight... We need our elected officials listening better."

Quinn was also AWOL at a televised debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters earlier this week.  read more »

Yetta Kurland, running against Christine Quinn, Tsar Bloomberg's co-dictator, for the 3rd City Council seat in Manhattan, just picked up another endorsement:

Yetta Kurland, who many say is quickly becoming the frontrunner and overtaking incumbent Christine Quinn to be the next City Council Member in the 3rd District, received yet another endorsement today from a local Democratic Club - The Women's Democratic Club of New York City.

The club is especially important not only because it was started almost two decades ago in Greenwich Village, but also because of its strong ties with feminists, women and men, in the community, and its support for insurgent candidates running against politics as usual in the City.

Kurland has a long history in women's rights including organizing around reproductive rights and anti-violence work as far back as the 1980's. She has also recently been very involved in working to raise awareness around street harassment in her District and throughout New York City.  read more »