Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s hiring of 13 former staffers from the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid and other national campaigns is costing state taxpayers $1.5 million a year, state records show.
Some of the hires are being paid not through the governor’s office budget but through state authorities and other entities considered “off budget.”
The top hires include Maria Comella, whose hiring as Cuomo’s chief of staff was announced in April. She is being paid $175,000 a year, according to records obtained under the state Freedom of Information Law. Comella initially had been hired as a consultant to Cuomo to help shape this year’s agenda after working for Republicans in presidential races, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election, as well as Rudolph Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain.
Other hires include Andrew Tillman, a former speechwriter for Obama’s chief of staff. Tillman is being paid $80,000 a year in his state job writing speeches for Cuomo. Jen Darley, who was the national lead advance staffer for the Hillary for America Campaign, is now paid $110,000 as Cuomo’s assistant director of executive operations, records show.
Such hiring of staff from outgoing adminstrations or failed campaigns isn’t uncommon. Cuomo’s hiring comes as he prepares his 2018 re-election campaign and as some supporters urge him to run for president in 2018.
More than 4,000 people availed of the government's employment-verification system using Social Security numbers belonging to people over the age of 112. Trouble is fewer than 40 people are known to have reached that age. That's one of the revelations from a review by the watchdog for the Social Security Administration.
The review also said there were approximately 6.5 million Social Security numbers linked to people 112 years of age or older. The reason, the review said: "SSA did not have controls in place to annotate death information on the ... records of numberholders who exceeded maximum reasonable life expectancies and were likely deceased."
According to the most recent data, there were fewer than 40 people worldwide who were living at 112 years, according to the Gerontology Research Group.
The review noted that in one case a man opened bank accounts using several different Social Security numbers — two of which belonged to number-holders born in 1869 and 1893, respectively. That would make one of them 145 years old and the other 121. The Social Security Administration's system indicated that both number-holders were alive.
Whatever one thinks of the President Obama’s aggressive executive action on immigration—which is still being litigated in the courts—tax refunds for the affected illegal immigrants has itself become controversial. The IRS says that illegals can file and claim refunds for the last three years under the Earned Income Tax Credit. That is the same refundable tax credit that is responsible for billions in fraudulent refunds. IRS Commissioner Koskinen confirmed this, explaining the seemingly bizarre result to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).
What if you never reported any income or never filed a return? Under President Obama’s executive action, an illegal immigrant can: (1) get a Social Security number; (2) claim the Earned Income Tax Credit for the three open tax years; and (3) IRS sends three years of tax refunds. No matter that you never paid taxes, never filed a return, worked off the books, etc.
The IRS says this is the way the Earned Income Tax Credit works. IRS Commissioner Koskinen says the IRS is following a 15-year-old opinion that “a taxpayer may claim the Earned Income Tax Credit for a taxable year using a Social Security number acquired in a later taxable year.” Calling the three year tax refund perk a mockery of the law, Senator Grassley noted that illegals would be able to claim billions of dollars in tax benefits.
Sen. Grassley vowed legislation to overturn the IRS position. “The tax code shouldn’t reward those who broke our immigration laws,” he said. So far, the President hasn’t backed down, so U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry has introduced a bill to keep undocumented workers from receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit, a benefit for low- to moderate-income taxpayers.
“My bill is a direct result of the (IRS) announcement,” said McHenry, a Republican who represents the 10th District, which includes Gaston County. “It’s very simple. If you’re not here legally, you should not be able to access the Earned Income Credit. It’s for the American taxpayers who are trying to make ends meet.”
Illegals in the U.S. covered by President Obama’s recent action can apply for tax breaks going back three years. Rep. McHenry thinks there is a great chance for fraudulent returns, noting that even if undocumented workers were employed in the past, many may have used Social Security numbers that didn’t belong to them. That in itself is fraud.
[A video is embedded up top, but if you can't see it, you can view it here.]
One in five applications by young undocumented immigrants applying for President Obama’s “deferred action” protection has been fraudulent, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said Tuesday.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) provided no details during a congressional hearing, where Obama’s expansion of his 2012 protective order was under scrutiny.
But an aide said later that the figure had been provided by US Customs officials at a closed briefing.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson didn’t dispute the numbers.
Cristian is one of the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors who have illegally crossed the southwest border in recent months, in a wave that has overwhelmed immigration officials and prompted the Obama administration to declare a humanitarian crisis and open three emergency shelters, on military bases in California, Oklahoma and Texas.
But while the government’s response has been largely focused on the southwest, the surge of child migrants is quickly becoming a crisis around the country. The fallout is being felt most acutely in places with large immigrant populations, like New York, where newly arrived children and their relatives are flooding community groups. They seek help fighting deportation orders, getting health care, dealing with the psychological traumas of migration, managing the challenges of family reunification and enrolling in school.
“It’s almost like a refugee crisis,” said Steven Choi, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, an advocacy group.
Federal officials will not reveal how many children they are holding, how many are being released or where they are being sent. But in the New York region, immigrant advocacy organizations say they have seen a stunning rise in the number of unaccompanied minors seeking help in the past several months.
“All of a sudden it went from a trickle to more like a river,” said Anne Pilsbury, director of Central American Legal Assistance in Brooklyn.
The Obama administration in 2013 released nearly 68,000 undocumented immigrants who had criminal records – many of them in New York and New Jersey, according to a new review of immigration data.
The shocking numbers came from a report released Monday by the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think tank that studies immigration patterns.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement data showed that New York’s ICE office released 5,391 – about 71 percent of the 7,571 criminal undocumented immigrants it encountered, a rate second only to San Antonio, which released 79 percent.
The Newark office came in fourth, releasing 2,149 about 60 percent of 3,581, right behind third-place Washington DC, which released 64 percent.
In a move expected to save three struggling Brooklyn hospitals, the Obama administration has finally agreed to let the state reinvest $8 billion in Medicaid savings into its health care system, Gov. Cuomo said Thursday.
Cuomo has repeatedly warned that without the approval, Brookdale Hospital, Interfaith Medical Center and Wyckoff Heights Medical Center would soon shut down.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Cuomo Thursday that the feds are ready to sign off on the request.
The $8 billion is $2 billion less than the state had sought, but it’s enough to help remake the health care system, Cuomo said.
Disregard the political rhetoric prior to this week's tentative approval by federal health officials of an $8 billion grant to overhaul New York state's health care system.
The so-called Medicaid waiver is not going to prevent every struggling Brooklyn hospital from closing, let alone any specific hospital. It won't keep New York City's public health system in the black.
And the waiver has nothing to do with New York's insurance exchange created under Obamacare, a connection that Gov. Andrew Cuomo publicly made as he pushed Washington to approve the cash infusion he had sought for 19 months.
For the average New Yorker, the $8 billion grant will actually chip away at the beloved hospitals so many community groups have battled to protect in recent years. The blunt reality of the new federal funding is that community hospitals throughout the city will lose beds. Many will be a sliver of their former selves, and newly anchored to big health care delivery systems. Access to more complex medical services will require travel to another neighborhood—or another borough.
In truth, what the $8 billion in federal money will fund can't be explained in a soundbite. That is because most of it will be funneled through the complex federal Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment program, or DSRIP, embedded in similar waivers that Washington approved for New Jersey, California and Texas. The program is meant to stabilize the health care safety-net system and to cut avoidable hospitalizations and emergency-department use by 25% over the next five years.
Charles Rangel was first elected to Congress the year the Beatles broke up. John Lindsay was mayor, and the nation's Environmental Protection Agency was born.
Now, Rangel said Thursday that he is seeking a 23rd term to help implement President Barack Obama's agenda.
"There's a lot of work that the president has started that we haven't had an opportunity to complete," he said.
If Rangel and the president see eye-to-eye on policy, they haven't always had the smoothest personal relationship. Obama once stated publicly that the dean of New York's congressional delegation should "end his career with dignity" when facing an ethics scandal. Privately, Obama has reportedly said much worse things.
"I don't have any problems with this president," Rangel said. "I have a problem with our economy. I've got a problem with the homeless, the jobless and the hopeless."
Two years ago, Rangel faced a primary challenge from state Senator Adriano Espaillat. The district became more Latino when it was redrawn in 2012. While Rangel won that race, it was close, with Espaillat not conceding for two weeks.
Espaillat is stopping just short of publicly saying he's running again.
Here’s some scary news: The Cuomo administration is preparing to shove thousands of mentally ill New Yorkers out of supervised settings — where they can be forced to take their medication — into far less restrictive, far more dangerous “community housing.”
This, despite two recent cases of people being fatally shoved from subway platforms — both allegedly by crazy people.
Albany, under pressure from the Obama administration, recently ordered psychiatric facilities not to place any discharged patients in adult homes, where staff can ensure they take their meds.
Instead, they’ll be placed in “community housing,” without full-time supervision.
This is part of the state’s plan to essentially empty adult homes into community-based “supportive” apartments, leaving up to 6,000 people — including those with schizophrenia — to live on their own, with minimal supervision.
Granted, the move isn’t entirely voluntary: The Obama administration has made clear in numerous states — including New York — that it wants to shut adult homes entirely, saying they illegally segregate the mentally ill. It’s prepared to sue to make that happen.
And if Albany doesn’t move, it could find itself back in front of none other than the imperious federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who in 2011 effectively ordered the immediate dismantling of the adult-home system — summarily rejecting every effort by Albany to reach a compromise.
The New York State Democratic Party denied embattled city Comptroller John Liu a slot to attend the 2012 convention in Charlotte, NC, this summer to nominate President Obama for re-election, The Post has learned.
The federal criminal probe of Liu’s campagn finances played a role in the decision not to name the comptroller as an at-large delegate, sources said.
“It certainly didn’t help,” said one party insider.
A Liu spokesman confirmed he was frozen out.
“John is heartbroken that he won’t be able to help renominate President Obama, but he will continue to campaign vigorously for his re-election in every way possible,” said Liu campaign spokesman George Arzt.
Gov. Cuomo had a say in who was named delegates, and who wasn’t.
We have been tracking the lackluster efforts of law enforcement in bringing the illegal lobbying work of Claire Shulman's Flushing/Willets Point/Corona Local Development Corporation to some sort of just enforcement conclusion. We have harped on the fact the NYS Attorney General's Office has completely tanked its original investigation of the illegal lobbying (under Section 1411 of the not for profit laws of NY), but haven't dwelled too much on our complaint to the IRS-something that we had written to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell about.
Now, however, a disturbing story prompts us to re-visit the federal aspects of Shulman's illegal lobbying scheming-the fact that the IRS is hounding Tea Party groups, forcing them through hoops to qualify for their not for profit status. The Daily Caller has the story-via Instapundit:
"During a 2009 commencement address at Arizona State University, President Obama joked that he’d send the IRS after those who didn’t see eye-to-eye with him. For over 100 tea party groups, his comments are not amusing; they are a reality. The tea party has had a profound impact on the national political debate, bringing the size and scope of the federal government to the forefront of the American dialogue. As voters increasingly connect with the tea party’s values, President Obama and Democrats have grown concerned about the movement’s grassroots energy. In a “Chicago style” attempt to smother the movement before the 2012 election, the Obama administration is using the IRS to attack tea party groups."
Check out what one Tea party group is being forced to do:
"The Waco Tea Party submitted an application for tax-exempt status in 2010. Nearly two years after the IRS’s 90-day response window elapsed, the group finally received a reply — a list of over 50 demands. The three-year-old organization was asked to compile every Facebook post and tweet it had ever produced. It was told to submit transcriptions of its weekly radio show — a request that would cost $25,000 to comply with, more than twice the group’s annual budget. It was ordered to explain any “close relationships” with candidates. And when the Waco Tea Party asked the IRS to clarify “close relationship” and “candidate,” the IRS replied, “Send us everything.”
Well, well, compare that with the Shulman application. As we said to Senator McConnell:
"The reason for this letter, however, is your publicly expressed concerns about the politicization of the IRS concerning the not for profit status of various tea party groups. We at WPU share your concerns because we have seen firsthand how the IRS has ignored our own complaints about the FWPCLDC-a group made up of real estate developers with no charitable objective.
As the group’s director Claire Shulman told the NY Times in 2009 lobbying was the "primary purpose" of FWPCLDC and "the whole idea." However, when filling out the IRS forms under lobbying the group wrote, “No.” This was in spite of the fact that the Shulman-led lobbying effort in favor of the Willets Point development was extremely successful-leading to the passage of this eminent domain inspired project that has put our properties at extreme risk."
WPU made a formal complaint to the IRS about Shulman's group and have yet to hear from these politicized bureaucrats-even when they are handed a prima facie case of illegality right in their lap. So it's pretty clear that when it comes to the equal enforcement of the law the Obama administration believes that some groups are more equal than others-and property rights be damned!
Many in the political world expected that Mr. Turner’s seat would be on the chopping block, under the political equivalent of the last-hired, first-fired principle.
But it appears Mr. Turner’s prospects of preserving the district, which stretches from southern Brooklyn to southern Queens, are improving.
Just last week, he went to Albany and made his case before Dean Skelos, who, as the Republican majority leader of the State Senate, is a crucial figure in drawing the new lines. He told Mr. Skelos what he had done in Washington during his time there and expressed his desire to keep the position. Mr. Skelos, in turn, offered encouragement — but no promises.
What is helping Mr. Turner’s chances, according to people monitoring the discussions in Albany, is the symbolic power of his victory to the party nationally.
Mr. Turner defeated David I. Weprin, a scion of a Democratic family in Queens, in a race in which Democrats mobilized some of their biggest names and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mr. Turner turned the race into a referendum on the policies of President Obama.
Sen. Charles Schumer's brother-in-law was quietly nominated this month to a federal judgeship in New Jersey -- a move that has some in the Garden State crying political foul.
Kevin McNulty, who is married to Schumer's sister, Fran, was named to the US District Court by the White House late last week.
According to a boilerplate quote, President Barack Obama said McNulty is a "distinguished individual" who "will serve the American people with integrity and a steadfast commitment to justice."
New Jersey's two Democratic senators, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, followed that up with their own news release heaping praise on the nominee.
What no one mentioned is that McNulty, 57, was the last-minute choice of Lautenberg, who had been leaning toward other candidates until surprisingly submitting McNulty's name to the White House.
The Obama administration has extended its crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants, notifying 500 companies across the nation in recent weeks that the government will inspect their hiring records.
The surge in so-called silent raids is the first to occur in the government's new fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. In the year ended Sept. 30, the US audited 2,496 companies, topping the previous year's tally of 2,196.
The audits of employee records by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, can lead firms to lose large numbers of employees and face lower productivity and steep legal fees.
The audits can result in civil and criminal penalties. Companies can be fined, barred from competing for government contracts and be hit with criminal charges of knowingly employing illegal workers and evading taxes.
An ICE spokeswoman confirmed that employers across the US had been asked to turn over their I-9 employment eligibility forms and other documents to the agency.
ICE did not name the businesses being investigated.
Sure, when it comes to Washington’s spending, he’s got all the answers. But critics note New York City’s debt has ballooned on Mayor Bloomberg’s watch.
Hizzoner said on Tuesday that fixing the federal budget is “just not that difficult to do, if you have courage.”
He scolded President Obama and both houses of Congress for their budget gridlock, sketching out a costcutting, taxraising, entitlement shaving plan that he said would dismantle the deficit and balance the budget in 10 years.
“I was reminded of the guy telling his neighbor how to fix his roof while his own is leaking,” Councilman James Oddo (RSI/Brooklyn) said of Bloomberg’s lecture. “Ten years into the mayor’s term, we have large, longterm fiscal problems we have not dealt with.”
Bloomberg’s budgets have increased the city’s capital debt by 72 percent —from about $42.7 billion when he took office in 2002 to $73.5 billion today.
That comes out to $8,763 of debt for every New Yorker, or 18 percent of an average New Yorker’s personal income — up from $5,293, or 14.3 percent, in 2002.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is said to be in panic mode over the prospect of David Weprin losing to Bob Turner in the special election for the Ninth Congressional District. An accumulation of gaffes, bad press and too-close-for-comfort poll numbers have fueled this perception. Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is said to be raising money for the campaign, though has yet to commit to headlining a fundraiser.
As one of the lone special elections in an otherwise dreary political year, the race is being held up as a bellwether for everything from President Obama’s re-election efforts, to the administration’s policies toward Israel, to the public’s fears about the economy, to gay marriage. But for many New York Democrats, the race is much simpler: an unexpectedly tight race in a reliably Democratic district.
“The DCCC is definitely panicking,” said one New York Democratic operative. “Even Nancy Pelosi is raising money to avoid the embarrassment of Weprin losing.”
Italicized passages and many of the photos come from other websites. The links to these websites are provided within the posts.
Why your neighborhood is full of Queens Crap
"The difference between dishonest and honest graft: for dishonest graft one worked solely for one's own interests, while for honest graft one pursued the interests of one's party, one's state, and one's personal interests all together." - George Washington Plunkitt
The above organizations are recognized by Queens Crap as being beneficial to the city as a whole, by fighting to preserve the history and character of our neighborhoods. They are not connected to this website and the opinions presented here do not necessarily represent the positions of these organizations.
The comments left by posters to this site do not necessarily represent the views of the blogger or webmaster.
