Former Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill, once said, “All politics is local.”
I’m a political junkie when it comes to national politics. If someone were to quiz me on the goings on of the Obama administration, you’d get an earful.
However, if you quiz’d me on local politics, I’d most likely would flunk the exam.
I don’t know who my city councilman is, or if it’s a man or a woman. But, I don’t think I’m alone in this matter. I mean who really cares much about Joe Shmoh representing the 11th district in Whatchamacallitville?
But, one thing I do know.
These local pols are the sleaziest lowlifes around because nobody is really paying them much attention and they don’t have to worry major national media peeking over their shoulder.
They get to hide in plain sight with their hands firmly in the taxpayers’ cookie jar. And here in New York City, where Democrats have controlled both houses of the city council for years, corruption, graft and creative ways to funnel money through non-profits is standard operating procedure.
Miguel Martinez
Last July 2009, Manhattan Democrat City Councilman Miguel Martinez plead guilty to federal charges involving the misuse of taxpayer dollars through Council slush funds.
Martinez agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges related to the misuse of public funds by several nonprofit groups, including one where his sister was a board member.
One of the groups involved in the case is a group Martinez has long favored with public funds going to the Upper Manhattan Council Assisting Neighbors (U-CAN).
In the last two fiscal years, Martinez earmarked $786,000 in taxpayer dollars for U-CAN while his sister Maria served on its board.
This year, Martinez also sponsored $53,000 in public funds for another nonprofit, ARC XVI Fort Washington Inc., which has employed his sister as a program aide.
Larry Seabrook
Seabrook, Bronx Democrat Councilman, often referred to as "Cash and Carry Larry," bought a bagel sandwich and diet soda for $7 and went on to claim it as $177 in expenses by submitting a doctored receipt.
He funneled more than $1 million in Council funds to nonprofits he "controlled and directed," including $300,000 for a bogus program to recruit minority-group candidates for the Fire Department.
Seabrook arranged for his family and mistress to collect $530,000 from the nonprofits. His sister got $10,000 for writing a six-page report.
He put his wife on the board at the New York African-American Legal & Civic Hall of Fame, another Seabrook-run nonprofit.
Seabrook installed his girlfriend Gloria Jones-Grant, who worked part-time in his office, as executive director or consultant for three nonprofits: the Northeast Bronx Redevelopment Corp., the Hall of Fame and the Mercy Foundation.
He inflated rents at the Bronx nonprofits to collect $102,900 in city money.
Maria del Carmen Arroyo
Democrat Councilwoman Arroyo is a member of a powerful political family whose members have close and complicated ties to several nonprofit groups that have received taxpayer funds at the behest of her and her mother,
state Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo.Maria del Carmen Arroyo's nephew, Richard Izquierdo Arroyo, was busted last year on charges of skimming $200,000 from a taxpayer-funded Bronx nonprofit.
He allegedly bought plane tickets for the mother-and-daughter pols, as well as summer interns for both officials and flooring for the assemblywoman's district office.
Councilwoman Arroyo in recent years directed $130,000 in council funds to the South Bronx Community Corp. -- an affiliate of the nonprofit her nephew allegedly ripped off and $1.5 million in capital funds to a charter school where Izquierdo chaired the board.
The South Bronx nonprofit once employed Arroyo, her mother, sister and nephew.
For as much as Democrats love to publicly play the class warfare game by demonizing corporation like Exxon or Goldman Sachs for raking in huge profits, they have no problem privately collecting illegal kickbacks for their own self-profit by using non-profit organization as a smokescreen to rob taxpayer money.
Via New York Post
Via New York Daily News
From The Last Tradition
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