That aroma of fraud: 70% of Bill de Blasio's
local donors come from one hotel union
< >
Is Bill de Blasio able to do anything honestly?
It's not enough that the Democratic presidential nominee has something like zero-percent support. He's got support all right, in New York City - from exactly one hotel workers' union, the 40,000-strong Hotel Trades Council ... and pretty much no one else. The union "owed" de Blasio for harrassing a rival, AirBNB, and there looks like some back scratching as a result. According to the New York Post:
In the subsequent weeks, some 4,600 hotel and hospitality workers gave a total of $89,000 to the campaign with the average donation being just under $20, according to the Center for Public Integrity campaign finance data reviewed by The Post.
As of June 30, he’d secured $1.1 million from a total of 6,700 donors.
Shortly after launching his long-shot White House bid in May, de Blasio told NY1 his campaign would have a “grassroots-focused approach.”
The Post reports that 70% of de Blasio's New York City support comes from this one hotel workers' union. And, to do the numbers, 4,000 of these 40,000, a whopping 10%, just couldn't help but shell out tiny less-than-$20 campaign donations because they were all just so grateful de Blasio harassed AirBNB?
Something smells a little rotten here, the smell of the Fulton Fish Market on mafia shakedown day. Seriously, we are supposed to think that that many slave-wage workers just couldn't help themselves and had to shell out for Bill, even as every other union in the city shows no such worker support? Even as smalltime donors are keeping away from de Blasio and the crime-filled mess he's made of New York? And these small-league de Blasio donors all did it so very spontaneously and voluntarily? How many of these workers were here illegally -- and by extension, were extremely easy to shake down, 'nice job you have here, be a shame if anything happened to it?' In the hotel industry, you can bet it was quite a few.
Coming from de Blasio, who says it's all very grassroots, this is rich. De Blasio in fact is no stranger to campaign corruption allegations. In 2017, according to this local CBS report, the feds were after him for exactly that:
The corruption probe by the FBI and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara is looking into whether polices officers accepted lavish gifts and vacations in exchange for police escorts and security.
But the investigation also involves businessmen Jeremy Reichberg and Jona Rechnitz, who both served on de Blasio’s inaugural committee in 2013 and contributed to his campaign.
Now, sources told Kramer the feds are questioning people in the real estate industry about how the mayor raises money.
Sources said the questions from the U.S. Attorney’s office have focused on how donations are solicited by team de Blasio – including former campaign treasurer Ross Offinger.
When even Preet Brarara thinks you're corrupt, it's got to be pretty bad.
De Blasio's no stranger to other scandals either. There was that lost billion on his wife Chirlane McCray's educational initiative -- to this day no one knows where the money went, according to the Post's Bob McManus:
Fast-forward to Wednesday, when the City Council was startled to discover that McCray and Team Thrive are closing in on having spent an eye-popping $900 million since the program’s inception — and nobody seems to have a clue on what.
That is, nobody appears to have kept receipts; the subways and street corners are still overrun with crazy people, and nobody in charge knows what’s to happen next.
But let’s be clear: If your boondogglery sets the New York City Council back on its heels, you truly are soaring with the eagles.
Or this:
Right up there with co-Mayor Bill, who started the week on his own sour note — announcing that his signature Renewal school program was closing up shop after pounding $773 million down a rathole.
Well, he didn’t actually say “rathole,” and the price tag has doubtless been lowballed — but he also had no credible explanation for the debacle, nor did he apologize for it.
That's a whole lot of suspicious dealing around campaign finance, now showing up in this one very, very, very grateful hotel worker's union and all of its workers' sudden impulse to donate to de Blasio's campaign coffers.
The irony here is that Democratic Party chairman Tom Perez said that the Democrats were allowing so many clowns on stage precisely because they wanted the party to be transparent, to avoid the idea of favoritism in the picking of candidates which clouded their 2016 election turnout as Bernie Sanders got stiffed.
What that's really opened the door to is unworthy characters with zero support and long histories of campaign finance violations and corruption in general, to get on the stage, too. Instead of making the system better, it has been made better but only for corrupt people such as de Blasio.
Maybe it's time to investigate this weird campaign baloney coming from his campaign as corruption, too.
local donors come from one hotel union
< >
Is Bill de Blasio able to do anything honestly?
It's not enough that the Democratic presidential nominee has something like zero-percent support. He's got support all right, in New York City - from exactly one hotel workers' union, the 40,000-strong Hotel Trades Council ... and pretty much no one else. The union "owed" de Blasio for harrassing a rival, AirBNB, and there looks like some back scratching as a result. According to the New York Post:
In the subsequent weeks, some 4,600 hotel and hospitality workers gave a total of $89,000 to the campaign with the average donation being just under $20, according to the Center for Public Integrity campaign finance data reviewed by The Post.
As of June 30, he’d secured $1.1 million from a total of 6,700 donors.
Shortly after launching his long-shot White House bid in May, de Blasio told NY1 his campaign would have a “grassroots-focused approach.”
The Post reports that 70% of de Blasio's New York City support comes from this one hotel workers' union. And, to do the numbers, 4,000 of these 40,000, a whopping 10%, just couldn't help but shell out tiny less-than-$20 campaign donations because they were all just so grateful de Blasio harassed AirBNB?
Something smells a little rotten here, the smell of the Fulton Fish Market on mafia shakedown day. Seriously, we are supposed to think that that many slave-wage workers just couldn't help themselves and had to shell out for Bill, even as every other union in the city shows no such worker support? Even as smalltime donors are keeping away from de Blasio and the crime-filled mess he's made of New York? And these small-league de Blasio donors all did it so very spontaneously and voluntarily? How many of these workers were here illegally -- and by extension, were extremely easy to shake down, 'nice job you have here, be a shame if anything happened to it?' In the hotel industry, you can bet it was quite a few.
Coming from de Blasio, who says it's all very grassroots, this is rich. De Blasio in fact is no stranger to campaign corruption allegations. In 2017, according to this local CBS report, the feds were after him for exactly that:
The corruption probe by the FBI and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara is looking into whether polices officers accepted lavish gifts and vacations in exchange for police escorts and security.
But the investigation also involves businessmen Jeremy Reichberg and Jona Rechnitz, who both served on de Blasio’s inaugural committee in 2013 and contributed to his campaign.
Now, sources told Kramer the feds are questioning people in the real estate industry about how the mayor raises money.
Sources said the questions from the U.S. Attorney’s office have focused on how donations are solicited by team de Blasio – including former campaign treasurer Ross Offinger.
When even Preet Brarara thinks you're corrupt, it's got to be pretty bad.
De Blasio's no stranger to other scandals either. There was that lost billion on his wife Chirlane McCray's educational initiative -- to this day no one knows where the money went, according to the Post's Bob McManus:
Fast-forward to Wednesday, when the City Council was startled to discover that McCray and Team Thrive are closing in on having spent an eye-popping $900 million since the program’s inception — and nobody seems to have a clue on what.
That is, nobody appears to have kept receipts; the subways and street corners are still overrun with crazy people, and nobody in charge knows what’s to happen next.
But let’s be clear: If your boondogglery sets the New York City Council back on its heels, you truly are soaring with the eagles.
Or this:
Right up there with co-Mayor Bill, who started the week on his own sour note — announcing that his signature Renewal school program was closing up shop after pounding $773 million down a rathole.
Well, he didn’t actually say “rathole,” and the price tag has doubtless been lowballed — but he also had no credible explanation for the debacle, nor did he apologize for it.
That's a whole lot of suspicious dealing around campaign finance, now showing up in this one very, very, very grateful hotel worker's union and all of its workers' sudden impulse to donate to de Blasio's campaign coffers.
The irony here is that Democratic Party chairman Tom Perez said that the Democrats were allowing so many clowns on stage precisely because they wanted the party to be transparent, to avoid the idea of favoritism in the picking of candidates which clouded their 2016 election turnout as Bernie Sanders got stiffed.
What that's really opened the door to is unworthy characters with zero support and long histories of campaign finance violations and corruption in general, to get on the stage, too. Instead of making the system better, it has been made better but only for corrupt people such as de Blasio.
Maybe it's time to investigate this weird campaign baloney coming from his campaign as corruption, too.
