Mike Bloomberg Says Bill De Blasio's Campaign is Racist...He Should Have Hidden His Bi-Racial Marriage???

 

Mike Bloomberg

What was Mike Bloomberg thinking?

In a wide-ranging and unfiltered interview with New York Magazine's Chris Smith, New York Mayor Bloomberg charged that Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination to succeed him, is running a "racist" campaign. He also criticized de Blasio for using his family — he's white, his wife is black and they have two mixed-race children — to make a race-based appeal to voters.

Here's the exchange:

Then there’s Bill de Blasio, who’s become the Democratic front-runner. He has in some ways been running a class-warfare campaign—
Class-warfare and racist.

Racist? 
I mean he’s making an appeal using his family to gain support. I think it’s pretty obvious to anyone watching what he’s been doing. I do not think he himself is racist. It’s comparable to me pointing out I’m Jewish in attracting the Jewish vote. You tailor messages to your audiences and address issues you think your audience cares about.

This is bizarre for several reasons. A key reason is that it's a political gift to de Blasio, who has been getting tremendous traction with Democratic primary voters by painting himself as the anti-Bloomberg. Now he gets to spend the last four days of the primary campaign defending himself against Bloomberg's baseless charge of racism.

Bloomberg also helped de Blasio by declaring that The New York Times was right to endorse Council Speaker Christine Quinn in the Democratic primary. Though Bloomberg and Quinn are politically aligned, he's previously avoided explicitly endorsing her, probably because his endorsement actually hurts in the Democratic primary. Now she has it, to her detriment.

And then he echoed Mitt Romney, saying de Blasio's "tale of two cities" message is wrong because "this city is not two groups, and if to some extent it is, it’s one group paying for services for the other."

Buried deep in this statement, Bloomberg has a valid point: New York City depends heavily on its tax base of rich bankers and businesspeople to finance a generous welfare state, and it should enact policies that grow that tax base. But framing the city's wealth divide in makers vs. takers terms only makes de Blasio's message more appealing to the large majority of the electorate that does not consist of high-paid bankers.

When I finished reading this long interview — which includes a defense of basically every unpopular thing Bloomberg has ever done, from appointing Cathie Black as schools chancellor to trying to build a football stadium on the west side of Manhattan — what I most wondered is why Bloomberg agreed to give the interview at all. It's a trainwreck, bad for his legacy and bad for his preferred candidates to succeed him. Why didn't he just keep his mouth shut?

I think the answer is that Bloomberg is angry. He thinks he's been a great mayor — perhaps the best mayor in New York City's history. And he's had to spend a year watching the field of candidates to succeed him lambaste his record — a field he sees as so mediocre that he reportedly tried to invite every high-profile potential candidate you would think of, plus some you wouldn't, like ex-Philadelphia Mayor and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.

E-Accountability. It's Time.

As we head into the campaign season, let's all remember the people who have stood up and said "No" and "No way" to Mayor Mike Bloomberg for 12 years. Then we all should - no, must -hold Mayor Bloomberg, Joel Klein, Cathie Black, Dennis Walcott and all their willing subordinates accountable for denying employees, parents and children their due process rights while in office. 

Definition of ACCOUNTABILITY: the quality or state of being accountable; especially : an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions."

Accountability matters. Anyone "suddenly" changing his or her mind now in order to curry favor is not worth voting for, in my opinion.

Betsy Combier
Editor of NYC Rubber Rook Reporter
President, The E-Accountability Foundation, a 501 (C) 3 which holds people accountable for their actions online

Education, Vision and the Mayor’s Race

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

LINK

The Democratic candidates for New York mayor, whirling around the boroughs on the debate-and-forum carousel, have been struggling for advantage and the attention of tuned-out voters. But they have had no trouble infuriating the Bloomberg administration, which seems to be getting touchier about criticism as it heads to the exits.

Exhibit A was a candidates’ forum on May 11 with the United Federation of Teachers, where they took turns blasting the mayor’s record on school reform. It was five Democrats — and Adolfo Carrión Jr., who’s running on the Independence Party line — in pursuit of an endorsement, so flattery and incumbent-bashing were expected. But the jabs made the mayor go all-but-apocalyptic in reply: “If the next mayor really is serious about kowtowing to demands from some radicals in a union,” he said, “then this city does not have a future.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s schools chancellor, Dennis Walcott, called the criticism an “unconscionable” assault on the Education Department and accused the candidates of lacking vision. On Saturday, at a conference in Brooklyn for school administrators, he foretold a “tragedy” if the next mayor did not continue Mr. Bloomberg’s policies.

But after 12 years, this mayor’s ideas are due for a counterargument. The critiques the candidates are offering hardly shock the conscience, and their complaints about the Bloomberg administration can be heard from teachers and parents in any school in the city.

The school system has indeed gone overboard in relying on standardized testing. Tests need to be a means to the end of better instruction, not the pedagogical obsession they have become. Yes, Mr. Bloomberg has shown disdain for consultation, as in his rush to close underperforming schools without the full and meaningful involvement of affected communities. The system needs to strengthen neighborhoods’ connection to schools and reconnect with parents who feel shut out. And while charter schools can be a path to excellence, they can also cause problems. Shoehorning them into existing school buildings over local objections can alienate parents and reinforce among students a harmful sense of being separate and unequal.

When Mr. Bloomberg won direct control of public education in 2002, it was a historic and necessary victory, ending a system of local districts that was grossly dysfunctional and unaccountable. The candidates should not be allowed to downplay or deny how bad things were when nobody was in charge.

But there can be truth in applause lines. Comptroller John Liu spoke for many at the forum when he told of his frustrating inability, as a parent, to give input to school officials. And William Thompson Jr., a former city comptroller, answered Mr. Walcott in a statement on Saturday by noting the incompleteness of educational gains: “For 12 years, the mayor has vilified teachers, shut out parents, turned classrooms into test prep centers and closed community schools. We have tried those policies, and our kids are still not receiving the education they deserve.”

The candidates are not above campaign mushiness and overpromising. While they support a long list of desirable things, like arts and music, smaller classes and community schools that provide health and social services in poor neighborhoods, they have been vague about how to pay for them. When asked at the U.F.T. forum to embrace the union dogma that only an educator can be chancellor, they all did, except for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who said, sensibly, “Not necessarily.” Nobody vowed to be tough in negotiating a new teachers’ contract. But that wasn’t going to happen before this group anyway.

The Democrats have work to do before the September primary to persuasively show how — and with what money — they would make the city’s schools better. They will be competing not only with a defensive mayor, but with voters’ inattention and distractions, especially if former Congressman Anthony Weiner cannonballs into the pool.

They have begun laying out ideas. Mayor Bloomberg and his aides are upset that the visions aren’t his. But they should not deny that alternate visions could exist, or the possibility that they could be better than the one we have.

Daily News Editorial: Anyone Re-assigned Should Be Terminated

From Betsy Combier: 

Most people have an idea about the Bloomberg administration and tenure rights: chop off "their" heads!! I mean, of course, all teachers with tenure.

The NY Daily News is the public relations rag of the Bloomberg juggernaut, and as usual its' Editors scream in unison with Bloomie and his puppet Dennis Walcott about how keeping alleged criminals on the payroll is unconscionable.
See below. Oh - and I have a bridge to sell you, if you believe the guk the NY Daily News Editors come up with.

Betsy Combier

 

Bounce ’em all

EDITORIALS

Saturday, October 20, 2012

LINK

Yes, the Education Department has whittled the number of allegedly incompetent or wayward teachers warehoused in rubber rooms to just 220 or so.

And, yes, the department and the United Federation of Teachers are resolving the charges lodged against idled instructors a good deal more quickly than they had in the past.

But, no, all is not well.

Responding to the Daily News’ disclosure that school system was still warehousing a large number of teachers at a cost of $22 million annually, Bloomberg admitted Friday:

“I know it’s galling, and it is real money.”

He’s got that right.

Teachers are removed from classrooms and placed in so-called reassignment centers when administrators conclude that they should not have further contact with children.

Charges are then adjudicated in an extraordinarily unwieldy arbitration process.

Most should be given support assignments, but many pass the time staring at the walls — to the department’s discredit.

The system is so cumbersome that administrators file charges against only a minuscule percentage of instructors and school leaders.

Around 200 educators a year are charged with incompetence or misconduct in any given academic year — a measly one-quarter of 1% of 80,000 teachers and principals.

On the brighter side, when the department does proceed against teachers, its batting average is better than you might expect.

During the 2010-11 school year, the disciplinary system closed 419 misconduct or incompetence cases. Forty-four percent of the targeted teachers and principals got fired or quit.

Departures by those charged with poor performance were particularly prevalent. Roughly 80% left the schools, and the rest were deemed suitable to return to classroom duties.

The lesson for Chancellor Dennis Walcott: File more charges.