ANALYZING MEDIA IMAGES: One District 30 candidate, Juan Ardila, has already been accused of racist social media posts, while the other candidate, Bob Holden, recently used a mailer to remind people that he's a Democrat with an Asian wife. But in this fierce battle of reputations, which candidate deserves more scrutiny? - Phil Campbell
I am a writer and a homeowner living in City Council District 30, which represents Middle Village, Maspeth, Glendale, and parts of Ridgewood, Woodhaven, and Woodside.
Pretty dull intro, right? Right. Not many people outside of my district care about this city council race, which has Juan Ardila challenging the incumbent Bob Holden.
The New York Post, though, found a reason to care. It splashed a scandalous story in its pages about how the Ardila had posted several homophobic and racist slurs on his Facebook page ten years ago, when he was still a teenager.
Ardila, who boasted endorsements from groups like the LGBT club the Stonewall Democrats of New York, was quick to apologize. “I fully understand how wrong and hurtful that language is and I wholeheartedly apologize,” Ardila, 27, said.
That might have been the end of it, but Holden, whom The Post identified as a moderate, fumed at Ardila's egregious teen behavior. Holden called Ardila’s apology “contrived” and "meaningless” since it apparently came too late.
But then Holden went further: “There is no place anywhere in the Democratic Party, on the New York City Council or in the City of New York for the kind of racist, homophobic, misogynistic language that Mr. Ardila has publicly posted on social media.”
Hold on. Now this is interesting. I've been following Holden’s career since his slender political victory as a Republican nominee in 2017, and an enormous question loomed for me after I read his indignant response: Has the Bob Holden of 2021 forgotten everything about the Bob Holden of the past ten years?
QC:
What's with that caption about Holden's wife? The mailer doesn't focus on her. Are Asian women not supposed to be seen?
Is this progressive?
JQ:
When I saw the bio of this intrepid reporter, my fauxgressive radar started going wild.
What I find fascinating about his shitpost is how he called Holden an ineffective legislator, which has an element of truth to it considering the dominant influence of fauxgressive ideologues the likes of Speaker Corey Johnson, Jimmy Van Bramer, Brad Lander, Steven Levin, Carlina Rivera etc. etc. etc. that hardly votes against Mayor's de Blasio's donor and agents of the city influenced policy decisions.
Gothamist immediately closed the comment thread after 8 comments, giving Phil's screed the feel of an additional op-ed to bolster the Holden as Republican and racist narrative and a publicly funded digital publication proxy endorsement of Ardila (Gothamist is run by WNYC, for now).
This isn't journalism or even editorializing, this is JuanAnon
55 comments:
I’m outraged!
@Anon re: I'm outraged.
As well as you should be
The Marxist Left built its political program on the theory of class conflict.
They now substituted race for class ! Prove me wrong ...
At the end, he accuses me of racism, classism and misogyny. Well, I never brought up race in that op-ed, I was raised in a working class family myself and am very much female. As for the Berry, we publish what our members send us. We don't solicit op-eds for "balance." I'm sorry a community magazine triggered someone that just moved here whose own media is skewed in one direction and incredibly biased.
This is right out of the Marxist play book.
Harass and intimidate us whenever anyone disagrees with their leftist impulses.
Ask the AOC Types if they know the 2022 midterms are comming soon bringing a total RED WAVE !
I feel like everyone’s taking crazy pills. Can we just hold someone accountable? Anyone?
Holden called attention to those swastikas and hate speech and got that monument cleaned up and Juan hasn't said a word about it.
Phillip Campbell contributed $575 to Juan Ardila for Council and another $150 to Elizabeth Crowley for Queens BP. He works at Verizon Media in Finance according to public disclosures:
https://www.nyccfb.info/FTMSearch/Candidates/Contributions?ec=2021&rt=can&ir=Campbell%2C%20Phillip&trans=ABC
He and wife Emily Hall own a two family converted from a one family in Woodhaven. She contributed an additional $75 to Elizabeth Crowley. She's an Editor at MOMA according to public disclosures:
https://www.nyccfb.info/FTMSearch/Candidates/Contributions?ec=2021&rt=can&cand=530&ir=Hall%2C%20Emily&trans=ABC
DEMOCRAZY said...
Their lack of self awareness is striking.
Imagine if Democrats and leftists had to tell the truth for a day.
Juan will take the spotlight just wait and see, the #FakeNews loves him.
All I'm going to say is I Stand With Israel!
GOD BLESS ISRAEL.
*the 2022 midterms are comming soon bringing a total RED WAVE !*
With Dominion Voting machines? Good luck with that
Many politicians include family members in their mailings. It is interesting though with the Asian wife comment. Asians--and whites--are being seen as unwanted in New York City by the progressives. The white progressives are just trying to hang in to keep the government paycheck coming. All of this is culminating in what seems to be a Black/Brown vs White/Asian racial divide in NYC. Look how quickly everyone turned on Andrew Yang for some moderate viewpoints after being the darling presidential candidate.
"Many politicians include family members in their mailings.
This is quite true. I find it distasteful to use family members as advertising props. Di Blasio used his Afro coiffed son to get elected in 2013 and now Stringer is using his two sons.
In my opinion this is child abuse. I couldn't care less about the kids of candidates. I want to know what their ideas are, period. End of story.
Holden's got a track record of doing more for this community before he became a councilman than than Juan can ever dream of doing. People know this and respect him for stepping down as the president of Juniper Civic and tackling the bigger issues affecting our whole city. What has Juan done for this community? Nothing.
"In my opinion this is child abuse" What ?
Our freedoms are under attack.
Hi, This is Phil Campbell. First of all, I would like to thank the publisher of this blog for graciously inviting me to comment and respond to comments about my article. It is an honor to be able to give my point of view in an environment where dialogue is encouraged! So. What was most interesting to me about Juniper Berry magazine, when Bob Holden was the chief editor was that, beyond the racist content he published, he never once invited people he disagreed with to actually sit down and actually talk to him about where they disagreed, and why. No, when Holden disagreed with someone, he did not believe in dialogue, he just knee-jerked attacked! The magazine was not a platform for real journalism but a platform for asserting one-sided opinion. He insulted people, he called them dumb and many other mean, insulting words. Going through old copies of the magazine, I was shocked to see how quickly, for example, Bill de Blasio was insulted -- Holden seems to never have reached out to the mayor, to sit down with his administration, and find where they could find some common ground. That's pretty ironic given how Holden was later quoted in the media as saying (1 or 2 years after getting elected) how he ended up personally liking de Blasio -- "I didn't want to like him, but I did," he was quoted as saying, or something very similar. I can find the story if you need it. But this is important, because as editor of the magazine, Holden had plenty of opportunity to invite the mayor to try to talk or interview him (or, say, Liz Crowley, who was your actual representative, and so pretty accessible if reached out to), to get to know them better first, but it's only AFTER Holden became a council member that he learns that de Blasio is not a bad guy after all and that the homeless problem is far more complicated than he originally thought? And after years of insulting the mayor he wonders why he can't stop the homeless shelter which was his NUMBER ONE campaign promise? Seems like a personality trait that would make any person "wildly ineffective," as I have posted before. And I'll be tweeting more about that at @iamphilcampbell next week, so keep your eyes peeled!
OK, but your blog is being SO very, very welcoming to invite me to comment here, so I appreciate this opportunity to reply! Anyway. I have read this blog, and I have read complaints about my article, and I would like to talk directly to all of these "anonymous" people who have posted here, as well as the editor of this blog: Let's meet either at Neir's in Woodhaven or on my back porch for a drink (or at your bar or house!), to have a real conversation about why we have such a great difference in opinion, because Juniper Park and Middle Village may feel like it is being represented by Bob Holden, but I do not feel that most of the rest of District 30 does. So let's meet and hash this out, and in the meantime I would really like to know how the article that I wrote in Queens Free Press is genuinely wrong, because Bob was THE editor back then, and that makes him THE leader of the magazine, setting THE tone of the magazine. And the tone for the magazine as the leader was far-right, conspiracy-theory, racist, homophobic, and angry. Bob Holden is not a Democrat; he may be registered as a Democrat, but if NYC was evenly split between Democrats and Republicans we all know he would join the GOP, this is obvious to everyone, with all due respect it seems like your criticism with my article has nothing to do with the substance of my article and is just a wishy-washy abuse of the word "racist." I used the word correctly in my article, what is your proof that I misused it?
Anyway, DM me on Facebook, let's get some drinks and discuss! I'm very much looking forward to a most civil conversation with some very reasonable folks! "Anytime, anywhere," is my motto, so let the reasonable dialogue begin!
Which one of them is attacking your freedoms?
Apparently The Queens Free Press is comprised of Mr. Campbell and one or two others who feel they're qualified to call themselves "Journalists" because they run a rag of a blog that very few read (Seriously why would anyone want to read such drivel) it's not even good enough to be called bad. Go back to cow country Phillip...
Well "Sheeple guy", and other disgruntled anons, are you up for meeting with Phil at Neir's? Will the media be present? Why not invite Bobby Holden too, unless of course he is the "Sheeple Guy"......
Campbell is wrong. Bobs's latest flyer shows him talking to ethnic minority types. He's even smiling. He's no racist, he's just a regular guy who likes to hang out with people of all colors and shapes.
Actually, it's quite a good article. Phil's article on the Queens Free Press. Thank you Queens Crap for pointing out this publication to us.
@Phil Campbell said... "common ground" with a Marxist LOL... Take a hike Meathead.
Campbell is very very wrong ! I know Bob for over 30 years he is not, not , not, not far-right, conspiracy-theory, racist, homophobic, or angry. Lay off the CNN Phil it wrecked you.
Phil Campbell is a racist! You heard it here first!
I find the comment by Mr. Campbell most interesting. Especially "he never once invited people he disagreed with to actually sit down and actually talk to him about where they disagreed, and why." I'm wondering how he jumped to this conclusion considering he himself didn't "sit down for a beer" with Holden or anyone else who was part of the civic during that time and admits he lives in Woodhaven, not Middle Village, and only for the past 4 years.
I very clearly recall several positive pieces in the Juniper Berry about Ms. Crowley including this comprehensive one. Holden, his wife, our VP and I attended her first victory party. I even personally donated toward her campaign. Believe me, after Gallagher and Como departed, we were more than ready to work with the area council member again. We tried. We had multiple sit down meetings with her, as well as Steven Banks, Adrian Benepe and other commissioners and mayoral reps. We do not go after people in the magazine until we have exhausted every option. And we did this knowing full well that we shouldn't have to chase after any of these people because they work for us, not the other way around.
The fact is that you did exactly what you accuse Holden of doing by actually jumping the gun with your attack and not communicating directly with him. It's more proof that you are attempting to deflect from your own racism as well as that of your preferred candidate.
We encourage our members to submit content for our magazine. You may not like or agree with their opinions, and that's fine. But it's not incumbent upon us to find opposing opinions to publish. It's an all volunteer effort and we have enough work as it is.
Now, the fact that you cropped Holden and his wife from a mailer that shows their whole family just to point out to your audience that she is Asian is creepy, dude. And more racist than any opinion piece you came across in our community magazine.
Sheeple, Don’t look over there is nothing good to see there at Phil's article on the Queens Free Press.
"DM me on Facebook, let's get some drinks and discuss!"
Brainwashed Sheeple are bad but they are not Dopey little fangirls. Get lost Rasist Pig !
Christina, don't bother. There are a bunch of RTU fanboys attacking Holden. They should focus more on the fact that the leader of their org is openly and unabashedly racist and misandrynistic. Every one of her "journalist" followers is a guilt-ridden white male SJW who she recruits to do her dirty work. She cycles through them like disposable wipes, too.
Racist and anti-immigrant? Phil should talk to Holden's campaign volunteers, who canvassed me today in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English. I took some palm cards and will pass along to family members in district.
Yes, I agree Christina, don't waste a minute of your time answering a moron asswipe like Phil Campbell. Here's a guy criticizing Holden for volunteering his time to put together a great magazine for decades! And of course Campbell is a hypocrite, like most of his ilk. His racist comment about Holden's wife is enough to write this idiot off. What has he done except write a one-sided self serving hate essay that demonstrates how twisted his views really are? Clueless Campbell knows absolutely nothing about the Juniper Berry and has appointed himself moral judge and jury while revealing his own racism. Whoops!
So referring to someone as “Asian” is considered racist now? How about referring to someone as Irish, Italian or Polish? Is that racist too? What is the view on this from the Holden crew and other assorted right wingers?
No dumb dumb. Stating that a candidate’s wife was only included so that the candidate could remind voters that he’s married to an Asian is racist. Why is the left so obsessed with race?
Isn’t Holden’s wife half Italian? Why only mention the Asian half?
For the life of me I can’t fathom why the race of a candidate’s wife is relevant. Love is love. You’re giving Democrats a bad name with this nonsense.
Phil and his dumb dumb friend are just too stupid to even see how racist they are yet are quick to accuse people that don't agree with them as racists. I got the Holden mail too and it's so interesting that Campbell focused on his wife. I saw a nice family, that's it!
Phillip Campbell is a failed writer because he can't. The schmuck convinces himself that he is right which is the first sign of a VERY limited mind.
I guess nobody's going to Neir's then? Not even the Sheeple guy?
"Isn’t Holden’s wife half Italian? Why only mention the Asian half?" That's because Phil the Fool Campbell brought it up because she "LOOKS" Asian. What a POS!!!
I’m curios to know how many of these anon replies came from Bob himself.
The most privileged people act like the most oppressed today.
"Phil and his dumb dumb friend" According to todays world, think a perfect person is a black gay transgender Latinx nonbinary OBESE vegan purple hair feminist who hates guns and Trump.
Leftists can't praise anyone without shaming someone else.
"Phil and his dumb dumb friends" The rise of the unspanked failures...er, the resistance...
I know the pandemic has given many people a lot of free time, but I don’t think I’d use it to ask for 10 years of back issues of a civic newsletter so I could try to hang a guy based on things other people wrote in it. And if even 1/4 of what commenter Christina said is true than the research done in order to justify this hit piece is sloppy at best. It’s obvious now why the author lists himself as a “former” journalist. He’s simply not very good at it.
Phil aside, and I do like Holden, but c'mon. Ardila was a 17 years old high school punk kid like we were all punk kids talking smack. He might be a bad choice for district 30, but let's not take a chapter from the Leftist doxxing playbook.
My invitation to meet with anyone who disagrees with me over a drink still stands. My email is PhillipCampbell7 at aol dot com. Also WHY is everyone besides Christina anonymous? That is a LOT of toxic trolling for people who won't put their names on the insults. Impossible to know if it's the same person doing it, someone on Bob's staff, or what. Oh, well. -- Phil Campbell
Ardila wasn't 17 when he said this.
Why would any of these people want to meet Phil for a beer? So he can avoid explaining the Asian comment in person?
Blog's been running since 2006 with anon comments. Who cares who's doing the commenting? It's not as bad of a hobby as combing through old civic magazines, underlining passages and pretending it's groundbreaking investigative journalism. Another RTU dope did this with the Ridgewood Times and also complained about anon comments here. I suppose Poor Richard's Almanack would have offended them as well back in the day.
Also WHY is everyone besides Christina anonymous? That is a LOT of toxic trolling for people who won't put their names on the insults. Impossible to know if it's the same person doing it, someone on Bob's staff, or what. Oh, well. -- Phil Campbell
Gee, I dunno, Phil. We must be paranoid. Who would do a horrible, cowardly thing like dig up some unrelated social media smack talk from our teenage years, if we put our real names here, in an effort to deliberately ruin our public reputations? I'm happy you're willing to make amends over a beer, and I hope you can smooth things over with people, but let's not pretend the toxicity of the internet suddenly vanishes even if you and I can personally be cool with each other, okay?
Come on, Man said...
POTUS45 was talking smack before he was elected but it was horrible #TDS ?
But it's OK for this punk Ardila ? Shut up Fat !
Yeah, I don't understand. The people doing the canceling of teenage poor decisions are the exact same people defending Ardila at this point. Ellie Kemper's getting blowback for attending a dance, the girl who sang a racist word on TikTok lost her college placement. It's not Trumpers or GOPers overreacting. It's super lefty Dems. So let's hold Ardila up to the same standard. And considering he wasn't a teenager when he made that anti-gay comment, he perhaps deserves it more than those previously mentioned.
The Left cancel culture Marxist are going to be condemning people all the time.
They are eating their own now and I love it !
We’re ALL racists who hate the other kind!Arent we?
Grow up and cooperate for the sake of harmony on America!
@Phil Campbell
For all the slagging you are doing about all the anons and Christina on here you have never acknowledged me,even though I am the one who posted this story which was sent to me by a reader and the screenshots and the editorial I wrote beneath them. I have been admin of this blog for about 3 years, which I do for absolutely no compensation and for the honored duty to disseminate stories and information that's being mostly overlooked by our elected officials. Which I also do on my own independent and criminally overlooked blog Impunity City.
I find this lack of acknowledgement highly disrespectful but I can see why, because going by the way you pored through Juniper Berry issues, I presume you checked out my blog too and realized that I have progressive stances and it would conflict with the narratives and allegations you are vainly trying to push.
I'd like to indulge in one of your allegations that I found interesting in your recent comments. Like how you claim that Holden, when he got elected to city council, was immediately repulsed by de Blasio without meeting him. Well, I think he wasn't alone considering that the Blaz was in the midst of a criminal case against him soliciting bribes from people doing business with city running a 501c4 slush fund PAC in city hall.
Your blanket accusations of the anons here seems like classic projection to me, since you don't have the same problem with shitlib trolling commentators on Gothamist, 99% of them who post under pseudonyms. And as I pointed out, it's interesting how that blog closed comments after you wrote your own screed maligning Holden and endorsing Ardila in a post promoting the latter candidates allegations of Holden trying to ratfuck the election.
The only ratfucking I see going on here is what you are trying to pull with you running protection for Ardila's campaign, which is basically what you are accusing this blog of doing for Holden. But what distinguishes these men is that Holden didn't write those terrible op-eds you covered(sans Christina's) but Ardila did and he waited til he was exposed to get rid of them, when he should have redacted them when he began his campaign a year ago while he was being groomed to be this "progressive" candidate.
I don't need to have a fucking beer with you Phil, because your mendacity and unconscious racism is just as toxic.
PART One:
To the Anonymous who referred to me as 'SHEEPLE' guy:
I am not a disgruntled 'Anon'; not everyone who has an evidentiary, on the record, credible complaint against corrupt city/state officials is disgruntled. It means that there is a profound crisis in honest, ethical, ACCOUNTABLE leadership (that leads by example) at any level, and it leaves constituents without recourse to demand help that is their taxpayer funded right, as well as a corrective course of action to prevail, instead of ignoring corruption altogether (the system works ironically to 'Shield & Protect' all derelict, incompetent, politically failed leadership), and that very same abused system to hold a publicly elected official accountable does not appear to be functioning, much less exist!
In fact, there was a time when I didn't post under a pseudonym at all. That is, until the 'Attack And Retreat,' And 'Accuse And Evade' tidal wave of ignorant, mentally lazy, arrogant, hostile comments inundated me to the point that I was forced to use the 'Anonymous' pseudonym in the first place. The majority of aggressive, ill informed posts were so completely off caliber, and got everything so wrong, every single time, that it left me no choice than to continue fighting injustice anonymously.
Worse, most, if not ALL of the comments that were left under an 'angry mob rule' (before I rightfully switched to a protected pseudonym) actually ended up legitimizing corruption and sloppy cover-ups from the multitude of completely dishonest, lazy and self-serving politicians who continued to cover up, conceal and withhold evidence that I submitted to them upon request, all of which was treated like an 'Inconvenient Truth.'
Not a singly representative showed even marginal interest in working THAT HARD for their respective constituencies, and they were perfectly happy with their 'selective' and 'occasional' representation, in addition to their overall 'Taxation WITHOUT Representation,' that assuredly leads to more of the same corruption, cover ups, dereliction of public duty, lawlessness, vigilantism and leaving people like me to rot in virtual obscurity, despite a credible body of evidence that continues to be rejected, with impunity. In fact, their willful negligence in helping what could have been an easily researched complaint with a turnaround resolution has created more wasteful expense and dysfunction regarding the very city coffers that they continually bilk, without censure.
/continued ... PART Two
PART Two:
Also, I immediately reached out to Bob Holden and likewise, Tony Avella (when he was a councilman from Bayside in 2007) and ALL of the usual, derelict suspects of the 32nd councilmanic district (Eric Ulrich, Joe Addabbo [who lied to me & my family by publicly stating that just as soon as he was elected to city council that my case would be 'Priority No. 1'——and, then his repeatedly proceeded to hang up the phone on me when he became a crooked senator, as his crony staff outright told me " ... Joe is not going to help you ... "]).
In addition, former sleazy Assemblyman Michael Miller had repeatedly promised to resolve my case throughout the course of nine staggering years of his two vapid terms. He even accompanied me up to Albany to meet with acting Governor David Paterson (a colossal waste of time and money that solved nothing). Then, when criminal/sociopath Michelle Titus was gerrymandered into my district (carried over after nine unaccountable years in the crooked hands of Mike Miller), she never even made even a marginal attempt to help, immediately followed by her Albany henchman, Richard McKoy, who personally threatened me by telephone to stop calling the office. Likewise, the present editor-in-chief of The QUEENS Chronicle, Peter Mastrosimone, threatened me by telephone that resulted in my filing of an immediate police report complaint——and, that was AFTER their local paper posted a full story about me, but when it came time to revisit the story a year later, they refused to hold Ulrich & Addabbo accountable for failing to use the powers of their respective offices to resolve my complaint.
Governor Cuomo is also deeply involved in this massive, sophomoric cover-up, abuse and harassment, as well as Ron Kim, the slimy Flushing sycophant who never returned any of my urgent letters and calls, dating as far back to 2010. And, the latest betrayal of public trust comes from a 24-year-old 'know nothing' named Khaleed Anderson, who on June 8th blocked me from his Twitter account when I publicly called him a liar (it's unlawful to block a constituent on a social media account held by a public official) after he and his intensely incompetent ALL BLACK, 'Friends & Family' staff jerked me around for months.
So, before you bandy about ill conceived descriptives like 'disgruntled Anon,' make sure that you FIRST understand the difference between 'disgruntled,' and whistleblower and 'silenced.' My odyssey with political corruption is why most, if not all whistleblowers don't speak about crimes that they've personally witnessed, or even crimes in which they are even marginally aware, because it instantly ruins their lives (when there is no inside, political heft to address the injustice), and it creates an even deeper level of adversity in their wake to press on to reveal the truth——a truth, ironically, that government spends all of its time and resources covering up, as in 'The Cover-up is worse than the crime.'
In the end, the extreme lengths that a politician takes to avoid representing his constituency is tantamount to not having any representation at all——and, as usual, it is you and I who continually pay a soul-crushing price for their dereliction of public duty. Until everyone protests together and stops enabling these dated, quaint henchmen from yesteryear, the abuse will only continue to worsen by the hour. My complaint is absolute, evidentiary proof of their epic government fail.
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