The Front Page Cover
2016 The truth will set you free
Featuring:
De Blasio on Defense
By Seth Barron
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Regulations Are the Ties That Bind
It might not have its own government, citizens or flag, but the world's fourth largest economy has become a force — and a threat — to be reckoned with. What constitutes this mysterious economic might? None other than the $4 trillion in federal regulations imposed by the U.S. government. You read that correctly. If the cost of government regulations were its own country, it would boast the fourth-largest GDP in the world — bigger than the economies of Germany, France, Brazil, Russia, Italy, and the United Kingdom. And it's just a couple of hundred billion away from matching the entire federal budget.
This bombshell comes courtesy of a new study by the Mercatus Center, which analyzed data from 1977 through 2012 to discover the cumulative costs of regulations (or, more accurately, taxes by a different name). While most studies of the economic impact of regulations have focused on select industries and/or specific regulations, the Mercatus study looked at data across 22 industries. The picture ain't pretty.
The study found that regulations, "by distorting the investment choices that lead to innovation, [have] created a considerable drag on the economy, amounting to an average reduction in the annual growth rate of the US gross domestic product (GDP) of 0.8 percent."
In plain English, if regulations had remained steady at 1980 levels, our economy would have been 25% — or $4 trillion — larger in 2012 than it was. This represents a whopping $13,000 loss per person in just one year. All to ensure every aspect of our lives is compliant with Uncle Sam's Big Government Guidebook.
Unfortunately, President Ronald Reagan wasn't joking when he quipped, "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
Just how many regulations are we talking about? As of December 2015, more than 81,000 pages-worth of federal rules, proposed rules and notices. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), these pages included 3,378 final rules and regulations, of which 545 affect small businesses. And this didn't count 2,334 proposed rules.
Regulations have become such a behemoth that CEI created tenthousandcommandments.com, which looks at "the other national debt — the cost of regulation." (In case you're wondering, as of last week, 2016 already has 1,001 new federal rules.)
Not surprisingly, the regulatory landscape only grew worse under nObama. As Investor's Business Daily notes, nObama's administration foisted 172 "economically significant" regulations on Americans in his first term, and 200 more since, thus far outpacing both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. And nObama's rules include things like, oh, the government takeover of the health care industry and the EPA's coal-killing carbon emissions rules.
It's little wonder our annual GDP growth has been sluggish at best. So sluggish that in 2013, the Bureau of Labor Statistics called slower GDP growth "the new normal." GDP growth in the first quarter of 2016 was a woeful 0.5%, the weakest in two years. (It was an anemic 1.4% in the previous quarter.) And nObama is on track to be the only president in U.S. history without a single year of 3% growth on his watch — he'll be doing well to average 1.55%.
Remember those wondrous numbers while nObama's sycophants at The New York Times' feature their puff piece in which he "weighs his economic legacy."
"I actually compare our economic performance to how, historically, countries that have wrenching financial crises perform," nObama mused. "By that measure, we probably managed this better than any large economy on Earth in modern history." Go back and read the aforementioned numbers and see if you agree that he "managed this better."
What's the solution? For one thing, eliminating thousands of pages of federal regulations. It's straightforward but hardly palatable to the government elites who believe they're most qualified to run your life.
Frighteningly, the alternative is the continued growth of the regulatory nation that keeps our economy in chains.
-The Patriot Post
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OPINION IN BRIEF
L. Brent Bozell & Tim Graham: "The liberal opinion site that calls itself PolitiFact insists it's just a fact-checking website. ... When it comes to humans, there is probably not a fact more verifiable than one's gender. But guess what? On April 26, the website Mediaite carried the eye-grabbing headline: 'PolitiFact Rules It's Now Objectively False to Call Transgender Women Men.' ... '[I]t's not entirely accurate to say that transgender women are men, as PolitiFact Texas has reported,' PolitiFact writer Linda Qiu harrumphed. 'Medical experts typically agree that a transgender woman is a woman who identifies differently from her assigned sex at birth, though there isn't universal agreement on this point.' In short, a transgender woman is a woman and not 'a grown man pretending to be a woman.' There isn't 'universal agreement,' but it's 'objectively false' not to call a transgendered man a woman. It's like global warming. Silence, you knuckle draggers! ... On so many issues, liberals insist there is no debate and should be no debate, that there is only sense and nonsense; truth and falsehood; and fact and fantasy. When it comes to 'non-conforming' to the immutable facts on gender, they are the moral deconstructionists embracing nonsense, falsehood and fantasy, insisting all the sane and sensitive 'medical experts' agree with their negation of fact. No one should settle a political debate with PolitiFact. On this issue, they're simply so liberal they're Politi-False." -The Patriot Post
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Prisons Come With A Degree and A Job
– At Taxpayer Expense
By Rick Wells
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{rickwells.us} ~ The full of themselves bureaucrats at the DOJ and the White House have come up with yet another brilliant idea for a way to flush taxpayer dollars down the black hole of Marxist waste... this time in the name of fulfilling the “criminogenic needs’ of convicted felons. The theory is they will be provided with everything they need to seek a life outside of prison. Unless there are some serious wiring problems inside their skulls, shouldn’t the reality of prison be enough to encourage them to behave in a manner that will allow them to remain outside? Does prison need to be like military school in order to make it less attractive than it is organically, as a prison? How about the incentive provided by a vibrant economy where citizens aren’t forced to compete with cut rate foreigners? That won’t happen in nObamaland. In the Marxist paradise nObama has created, it’s not the criminal’s fault he committed the crime. It’s also not the fault of the liberal Democrats running their urban, state and national politics that have open bordered, NAFTA’d and “green energied” them out of work. It’s society’s fault in general, no matter how much of the unnecessary self-inflicted damage the Democrats have imposed... http://rickwells.us/archives/28982
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Bombshell: The scandal
that could destroy slump liar-Trump
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{judsonphillips.com} ~ On April 26th, a bombshell struck the Presidential campaign. This is another Donald slump liar-Trump scandal. But this is no ordinary scandal. This is the scandal that could destroy Donald slump liar-Trump and give the White House to Hilly Clinton and the Democrats... What is this scandal and how will it play out? On Tuesday, a woman named Katie Johnson filed a lawsuit claiming that Donald slump liar-Trump and Jeffery Epstein used her as a sex slave and Donald slump liar-Trump raped her three times. Donald slump liar-Trump issued an immediate denial of this claim. This claim certainly carries more credibility than the unsourced, anonymous claims that were published by the slump liar-Trump allied National Enquirer. But this story gets much more interesting... http://judsonphillips.com/bombshell-scandal-destroy-trump/
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Al-Qaeda Claims USAID Worker's Murder, But Administration Not Calling It Terrorism
By Bridget Johnson
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{pjmedia.com} ~ The nObama administration did not characterize Monday's brutal slaying of a USAID worker as terrorism on Tuesday despite al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent taking credit for the crime... Xulhaz Mannan, 35, and Mahbub Tonoy, 25, were in their apartment in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Monday at about 5:30 p.m. when attackers posing as delivery couriers gained entry. They were attacked with machetes by men in their 20s who yelled "Allahu Akbar" on their way out the door. The attack followed the pattern of AQIS attacks that began in February 2015 with the machete murder of an American citizen, writer Avijit Roy, on a Dhaka street. Roy ran a blog featuring atheist, humanist and nationalist writers... https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2016/04/26/al-qaeda-claims-usaid-workers-murder-but-administration-not-calling-it-terrorism/
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Delegate Allocation Watch: Ken Cuccinelli beats
out Paul Manafort in Virginia.
By Moe Lane
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{redstate.com} ~ Seriously, at what point does Paul Manafort start fighting back? – Because Ted Cruz’s delegate wrangler Ken Cuccinelli got ten of the thirteen statewide delegates up for grabs in Virginia today... As usual, the delegates are bound for the first Presidential ballot so the hard delegate totals don’t change – but they’re also only bound to the first Presidential ballot, which means that Cruz will have a say in everything else. Including future Presidential ballots, which possibility still remains a thing, despite the constant drumbeat to the contrary for the last week or so. And this is definitely a victory for Cuccinelli and a defeat for Manafort. How do we know this? Because even slump liar-Trump’s Virginia guy doesn’t get to be a delegate to the convention. Which led to this amusing couple of sentences...
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Email Privacy Act Passes House
(it's about time!!), Senate Hesitates
By Kerry Lear
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{punchingbagpost.com} ~ Although the Email Privacy Act received a unanimous approval from the US House of Representatives, the bill is already getting some push back from the Senate... This act would prohibit law enforcement from obtaining citizens’ private emails without a warrant. Currently, officers are allowed to get this information with only a subpoena. This is much easier to obtain because it requires less judicial oversight. With law enforcement being mandated to acquire a warrant this would help give citizens’ more protection. Even though there was a 419-0 vote in favor of the act by the House, Sen. Charles Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicated that the Senate may not support the bill... http://punchingbagpost.com/email-privacy-act-passes-house-it-about-time)-senate-hesitates
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UK: The Left's Little Antisemitism Problem
by Douglas Murray
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{gatestoneinstitute.org} ~ Every time anyone thinks Britain's Labour party has reached a new low of anti-Semitism, entirely new depths seems to open... In September, I wrote here about how the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour party constituted a "mainstreaming" of racism in the UK. Although Mr. Corbyn claims he does not have any tolerance for any hatred of anyone, he is a man who has spent his political life cosying up to anti-Semites and terrorist groups that express genocidal intent against the Jewish people. He has worked closely with Holocaust deniers, praised anti-Semitic extremists and described Hamas and Hezbollah as his friends. During his leadership so far, it is clear that the lead he is given is being followed farther down the party hierarchy. In March, I described how the party appeared to be rotting from the head down, with the discovery that the Labour Club at Oxford University had become an entity rife with anti-Semitic insults. Yet anyone who thought that the party could fall no farther had not imagined its turns of the past week... http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7937/uk-labour-antisemitism
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slump liar-Trump’s Three Huge Lies About Cruz
by Lloyd Marcus
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{trevorloudon.com} ~ Joseph Goebbels said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” While I realize that Goebbels was Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, in no way am I comparing slump liar-Trump’s campaign to Hitler... Such comparisons are over-the-top nonsense. slump liar-Trump is not Hitler. I only refer to Goebbels’ quote because it is the disingenuous tactic slump liar-Trump has used against Ted Cruz. slump liar-Trump has relentlessly repeated his outrageous “huge” lies that Cruz is a cheater, liar and Washington DC insider. Folks, nothing could be further from the truth. And yet sadly, slump liar-Trump’s unfounded lies have taken root in the minds of some voters. Cruz did his homework, thoroughly studied the delegate rules. He “legally” maximized his opportunities to win delegates. Cruz’s approach to securing delegates proves his presidential executive qualifications; his instincts to dive into an issue, study it inside and out and implement the most effective strategy. Cruz’s political history broadcast that, as president, he will apply the same laser-focus tackling issues; implementing wise and informed solutions most beneficial to we the American people... http://www.trevorloudon.com/2016/05/trumps-three-huge-lies-about-cruz/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NewZeal+%28New+Zeal+Blog%29
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China’s Internet censorship: A WTO
challenge is long overdue
by Claude Barfield
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A picture illustration shows icons of WeChat and Weibo app in Beijing
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{aei.org| ~ Chinese online censorship operations are not new, and they have been well-documented for over a decade. But the situation has grown worse since President Xi Jinping took office in 2012... Today, the USTR reports that eight of the 25 most trafficked websites worldwide are currently blocked by the Chinese government. Especially targeted are popular search engines such as Google, as well as user-generated content platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. Sometimes, the blockade is permanent — Google formally withdrew from China in 2010 — but more often it is intermittent and random, as has occurred with increasing frequency with Gmail and Hotmail. The New York Times has been banned since 2012, and recently as a result of reporting on the misdeeds of President Xi’s relatives the Economist and Time magazine have also secured spots on the honored block list. Just last week, Beijing further tightened the screws on US companies when it imposed a ban on Apple’s online book and film services. The order came as part of a broader set of regulations, introduced in March, which established strict curbs on all online publishing... http://www.aei.org/publication/chinas-internet-censorship-a-wto-challenge-is-long-overdue/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITODAY&utm_campaign=050216
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Politics 2016: We are focusing on the wrong 1%
by DR. ROBIN MCFEE
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{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ Is the election over yet? Are we there yet? After how many months of this political season, I feel like the toddler asking mom and dad if we got to the destination yet... The only good news about our endless campaign season is the opportunity, however slight, to influence national affairs, as this one brief moment allows us access to the candidates in ways most citizens would never enjoy once the votes are counted, and the winner crowned. We, you and I, can, and should, leverage this opportunity. More in a moment on that....But in the meantime, you can't turn on the TV or radio without hearing the incessant yammering of various candidates screaming against the "1%" in American society, as each candidate continues to denounce the uppermost wealthy, blaming them for the growing income gap, and impugning the successful among us, as if they were the sum of all evil. The near never ending commentary about the "1%" with the implication that virtually everything bad in society is the fault of that tiny group, beyond being ludicrous, is a powerful method of controlling the narrative in such a way that the real issues that should concern everyone from Main Street to the projects to Rodeo Drive are being obfuscated by divisive politics pitting the "have less" and "have not" against the "have a lot." Clearly the politics of jealousy is alive and well in Election 2016 politics USA. It is a bait and switch... http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/politics-2016-we-are-focusing-on-the-wrong-1?f=must_reads
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"Climate Hustle" demolishes climate alarmism
by PAUL DRIESSEN
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{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ Without presenting it to the US Senate, as required by the Constitution, President nObama has signed the Paris climate treaty. He is already using it to further obligate the United States to slash its fossil fuel use, carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth... control our lives, livelihoods, living standards and liberties ... and redistribute our wealth. Poor, minority and working class families will suffer most. China, India and other developing economies are under no such obligation, unless and until it is in their interest to do so. For them, compliance is voluntary - and they cannot afford to eliminate the fossil fuels that supply 85% of all global energy, generate some 90% of developing nations' electricity, and will lift billions of people out of abject poverty. That's why these countries have built over 1,000 coal-fired power plants and are planning to build 2,300 more - while unaccountable EPA bureaucrats are shutting down US coal-fired generators, and getting ready to block natural gas production and use... http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/climate-hustle-demolishes-climate-alarmism?f=must_reads
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De Blasio on Defense
By Seth Barron
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{city-journal.org} ~ Did New York City mayor Bill de Blasio run a pay-to-play money laundering operation out of City Hall? It’s looking that way. Corruption-busting U.S. attorney Preet Bharara is probing the progressive icon’s political fundraising to determine whether those seeking something from city government were expected to pony up substantial sums that were then funneled to the mayor’s political allies.
The clearest example of these machinations was the mayor’s 2014 effort to win the New York state senate for the Democrats. The mayor—or his advisers— allegedly circumvented limits on individual campaign contributions by having wealthy real-estate developers and powerful public-employee unions make major contributions to upstate county Democratic committees. Bharara’s office is now investigating claims that those committees passed the money they received directly to designated local candidates, in violation of state law. The candidates were supposedly informed that they had to spend the money through specific New York City strategic consultants, all closely tied to the de Blasio administration and, just as important, to the Working Families Party—the political engine that launched de Blasio’s unlikely rise in 2013. The only surprise is that it has taken this long for these schemes to come to light.
The Working Families Party was a late-nineties creation of labor unions and the now-defunct Acorn (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.) Taking advantage of New York’s fusion-voting system that allows candidates to run on multiple ballot lines, the WFP gained traction in the 2000s by endorsing liberal “up-ballot” Democrats, and then encouraging people to vote the WFP line in order to maintain ballot position. Its goal, even then, was to wrest the state senate from Republicans’ decades-long control. The WFP leveraged its expertise in door-to-door campaigning to develop a superb political field operation that excelled at identifying likely voters and turning them out on Election Day. Funded heavily by public-sector labor unions such as DC 37 municipal workers, the UFT teachers, and SEIU 1199 hospital workers, the WFP has become a major force in New York politics. It now has branches in New Jersey, Connecticut, and other states.
In 2008, after Democrats briefly took control of the state senate, the WFP decided to spin off its field and electoral operations into a subsidiary, Data and Field Services (DFS), which could hire itself out on a for-profit basis to WFP-backed campaigns. DFS’s actual purpose seems to have been the reallocation of resources and personnel among the WFP’s candidates, and to enable coordination between campaigns—all of which is illegal, according to New York City’s campaign-finance laws.
De Blasio’s involvement with the WFP and Acorn is longstanding. “Without exaggeration, Acorn’s long-range plan since 2001 was to elect de Blasio mayor,” an anonymous Democrat told the New York Post in 2013. In 2006, then-city councilman de Blasio hired himself out for $33,000 to a group called “Progressive America Foundation” for some obscure lobbying services. The foundation operated out of the WFP’s offices. And, in 2009, de Blasio was DFS’s biggest client, paying the organization nearly $200,000 during his run for public advocate.
Even as the WFP expanded its reach, operatives from Acorn and the New York state senate Democratic political organization went into business for themselves. Acorn veterans Jonathan Rosen and Valerie Berlin—chief of staff to then-state senator, now-attorney general Eric Schneiderman—formed consulting firm BerlinRosen. Doug Forand, Marc Lapidus, and Nathan Smith, the senate Democrats’ brain trust, formed Red Horse Strategies. These firms have prospered richly under the WFP/de Blasio ascendancy, together booking more than $6 million in consulting fees for the 2013 municipal elections alone. But these outfits don’t limit themselves to helping politicians get elected: they also serve as consultants to labor unions, real-estate development corporations, and issue-based organizations—all seeking access to the halls of power. Neither BerlinRosen nor Red Horse is obligated to disclose the fees it collects, since neither calls itself a “lobbyist.” De Blasio reportedly spends hours per day talking to Rosen, who was also Sheldon Silver’s longtime adviser. Both claim that they never mix business with politics.
Four out of the city’s five district attorneys, as well as the state attorney general, are clients of these same consulting firms, so it is no surprise that this web of interconnections has become a federal matter. Consultants have turned New York’s political system inside out. They control the flow of money from their private clients to candidates who are forced to hire them, with the mayor’s office allegedly acting as a go-between. The mayor’s spokesperson insists that the “letter of the law” has been observed. Such legalistic language will be cold comfort to New Yorkers who expect the mayor to aspire to more than staying just inside the border of criminality—assuming he has done so.
The clearest example of these machinations was the mayor’s 2014 effort to win the New York state senate for the Democrats. The mayor—or his advisers— allegedly circumvented limits on individual campaign contributions by having wealthy real-estate developers and powerful public-employee unions make major contributions to upstate county Democratic committees. Bharara’s office is now investigating claims that those committees passed the money they received directly to designated local candidates, in violation of state law. The candidates were supposedly informed that they had to spend the money through specific New York City strategic consultants, all closely tied to the de Blasio administration and, just as important, to the Working Families Party—the political engine that launched de Blasio’s unlikely rise in 2013. The only surprise is that it has taken this long for these schemes to come to light.
The Working Families Party was a late-nineties creation of labor unions and the now-defunct Acorn (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.) Taking advantage of New York’s fusion-voting system that allows candidates to run on multiple ballot lines, the WFP gained traction in the 2000s by endorsing liberal “up-ballot” Democrats, and then encouraging people to vote the WFP line in order to maintain ballot position. Its goal, even then, was to wrest the state senate from Republicans’ decades-long control. The WFP leveraged its expertise in door-to-door campaigning to develop a superb political field operation that excelled at identifying likely voters and turning them out on Election Day. Funded heavily by public-sector labor unions such as DC 37 municipal workers, the UFT teachers, and SEIU 1199 hospital workers, the WFP has become a major force in New York politics. It now has branches in New Jersey, Connecticut, and other states.
In 2008, after Democrats briefly took control of the state senate, the WFP decided to spin off its field and electoral operations into a subsidiary, Data and Field Services (DFS), which could hire itself out on a for-profit basis to WFP-backed campaigns. DFS’s actual purpose seems to have been the reallocation of resources and personnel among the WFP’s candidates, and to enable coordination between campaigns—all of which is illegal, according to New York City’s campaign-finance laws.
De Blasio’s involvement with the WFP and Acorn is longstanding. “Without exaggeration, Acorn’s long-range plan since 2001 was to elect de Blasio mayor,” an anonymous Democrat told the New York Post in 2013. In 2006, then-city councilman de Blasio hired himself out for $33,000 to a group called “Progressive America Foundation” for some obscure lobbying services. The foundation operated out of the WFP’s offices. And, in 2009, de Blasio was DFS’s biggest client, paying the organization nearly $200,000 during his run for public advocate.
Even as the WFP expanded its reach, operatives from Acorn and the New York state senate Democratic political organization went into business for themselves. Acorn veterans Jonathan Rosen and Valerie Berlin—chief of staff to then-state senator, now-attorney general Eric Schneiderman—formed consulting firm BerlinRosen. Doug Forand, Marc Lapidus, and Nathan Smith, the senate Democrats’ brain trust, formed Red Horse Strategies. These firms have prospered richly under the WFP/de Blasio ascendancy, together booking more than $6 million in consulting fees for the 2013 municipal elections alone. But these outfits don’t limit themselves to helping politicians get elected: they also serve as consultants to labor unions, real-estate development corporations, and issue-based organizations—all seeking access to the halls of power. Neither BerlinRosen nor Red Horse is obligated to disclose the fees it collects, since neither calls itself a “lobbyist.” De Blasio reportedly spends hours per day talking to Rosen, who was also Sheldon Silver’s longtime adviser. Both claim that they never mix business with politics.
Four out of the city’s five district attorneys, as well as the state attorney general, are clients of these same consulting firms, so it is no surprise that this web of interconnections has become a federal matter. Consultants have turned New York’s political system inside out. They control the flow of money from their private clients to candidates who are forced to hire them, with the mayor’s office allegedly acting as a go-between. The mayor’s spokesperson insists that the “letter of the law” has been observed. Such legalistic language will be cold comfort to New Yorkers who expect the mayor to aspire to more than staying just inside the border of criminality—assuming he has done so.
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