John Liu had a bad night in Flushing

From the Epoch Times:

Three weeks before he faces incumbent Tony Avella in the Democratic Primary for New York’s 11th state senate district, John Liu was once again haunted by the skeletons in his closet.

At a candidate forum hosted by the MinKown non-profit, right before he was supposed to deliver a 1-minute and 15-second speech summarizing his platform to a ballroom of concerned citizens, protesters unfurled in front of Liu a banner that read “Arrest John Liu to Prevent his further Harm to the U.S.”

A female protester started lambasting Liu in Mandarin about connections to the Chinese Communist Party, which drew loud, forceful responses from Liu’s supporters in the crowd, creating a brouhaha that lasted over 10 minutes and needed quelling by the hotel’s security guards.

Liu was phlegmatic about the disturbance, sarcastically referring to the protesters as “friends” who had been “following him for years.”

“I’ve been told that they are a part of my friends at the Falun Gong who have been following me for years, mainly because they firmly believe I’m a communist spy from China,” Liu added.

Fu Yuxia, the female protester, later told the Epoch Times that she was there to draw attention to Liu’s ties to the Chinese regime, which she said seized her home in Shanghai in 1997.

When asked about Liu’s claims, Yuxia said that she was not associated with Falun Gong.

“I’ve heard of Falun Gong, but I’m not a part of Falun Gong,” Yuxia said.

From the NY Observer:

On actual policy positions, Mr. Liu and Mr. Avella differed little. Each backed a higher minimum wage, the Dream Act, public financing of state elections and other liberal priorities. While Mr. Avella did not take aim at Mr. Liu, the former comptroller assailed Mr. Avella once more for betraying Democrats and progressives by joining a group of breakaway Democrats that governs the senate with the Republican Party (the Independent Democratic Conference recently agreed to ally themselves with the mainline Democrats after the fall elections.)

Policy, however, took a back seat to the brief chaos.

Here's a list of the reasons why John Liu is the perfect candidate to represent Joe Crowley's Machine.

Busted Liu staffer housed Chinese party boss

From the NY Post:

Comptroller John Liu’s former financial fixer is tight with the hard-line Chinese party boss who busted blind dissident Chen Guangcheng, anti-government protesters in New York alleged.

They said Liu’s ex-campaign treasurer Jia “Jenny” Hou, who’s facing federal fraud charges and is accused of lying to the FBI, played host to the official’s top deputy when his rep visited the city in January.

The boss, security czar Zhou Yongkang, is reportedly on the hot seat in China for his handling of Chen, a human-rights lawyer who escaped house arrest and sought asylum at the US Embassy in Beijing.

Chen claims on a YouTube video that is was Zhou who arrested, beat and interrogated him.

Zhou’s deputy came to the city on Jan. 21, when he and Hou presented an award to a group that’s battled the Falun Gong, a religious and resistance movement, the protesters said.

They said the deputy, Yibao Zhu, bunked with Hou’s family on Long Island in a home owned by her rich father, Jian Li “Peter” Hou.

“This official was the personal guest for two weeks at Hou’s home while in New York,” said the Falun Dafa Information Center, which represents resistance members in New York.

Chinese groups wage war in Flushing

From the NY Times:

On the bustling thoroughfare of Chinese immigrants that is Main Street in Flushing, Queens, countless people hand out fliers for massage parlors, calling cards, English classes, money-wiring stores and other services.

But one group of regulars that offers fliers from its daily spot is not commercially minded. Its message is an ideological one: to disparage Falun Gong, the spiritual and meditation movement founded in China. It’s a movement, Falun Gong organizers say, that has found its largest following outside Asia in Flushing.

The group denounces Falun Gong as a cult, and it incorporates this charge into its name: the Chinese Anti-Cult World Alliance. The alliance set up a small folding table in the summer of 2008 on Main Street near Sanford Avenue, not far from the numerous tables staffed by Falun Gong volunteers who hand out literature lambasting the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government, which has banned and persecuted Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa.

For two years, the two factions have staked out their turf on Main Street like rival gangs, and they have waged a bitter ideological battle nearly daily for hearts and minds. They have created a scaled-down version of the tension between Falun Gong and the Chinese government.

Falun Gong members are convinced that this opposition group is an arm of the Chinese government and that its members are working as political operatives to oppress Falun Gong here.

A restaurant that needs a new name

From the Times Ledger:

A Flushing restaurant has admitted to discriminating against customers who practice Falun Gong and violating their civil rights, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

In a consent decree issued last Thursday, the owner of Lucky Joy Restaurant, at 41-10 Main St. in Flushing, admitted engaging in a pattern of ejecting 10 patrons, including an 8-year-old girl, from the restaurant on three occasions in 2008 because they were wearing clothing that displayed the doctrines of the religious movement.

Falun Gong has been banned in China for more than a decade due to its practices and has been on the rise in the United States.

“It is disgraceful that a person would be refused service in a restaurant for doing nothing more than exercising their right to wear clothing with a religious message,” Thomas E. Perez, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.

The manager was not available to comment by press time Tuesday evening.

Under the agreement, the Chinese restaurant’s owner is barred from discriminating against any patron based on “religion, religious expression, religious dress or association with Falun Gong,” according to the U.S. attorney. The owner has agreed that the staff will attend special training that will teach them the non-discrimination requirements listed in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the U.S. attorney said.