Working Families Party

Right-Wing Sites Succumb To Silly Occupy Wall Street Conspiracies

A wave of reports "exposing" the secret liberal money behind the Wall Street occupation has been cresting over the right-wing blogosphere, which has been at a loss to explain how a movement of dumb dirty hippies has managed to build up attention and support rather than explode or fade away. The answ ... More >>

Forget Rome: Jesus Gonzalez Takes on Brooklyn

​There's nothing like a nicely dressed young man standing just in front of the turnstiles handing out fliers with JESUS in big print at the top to get people to whip out their Metrocards, drop their heads and race for the train. Jesus Gonzalez, though, appeared indefatigable Thursday morning ... More >>

The Next Mayor? You Don't Care, Do You?

Aside from voter apathy and a weak field, the mayoral race is really shaping up.

Matt Damon Rallies the Troops Again for Working Families Party

​The frantic, pre-election, get-out-the-vote push is on everywhere. But aside from President Obama, whose last-minute stumping attracted a crew of stunningly self-defeating AIDS-activist hecklers over the weekend, the biggest star-power has been mustered by the Working Families Party which got ... More >>

Andrew Cuomo, Carl Paladino, and Those Nutty Polls

​The day before Mike Bloomberg defeated Bill Thompson by 4.6 percent of the vote last November, Quinnipiac said the mayor would win by 12 points. Its poll the day before the 2005 election predicted Bloomberg would beat Fernando Ferrer by 38 points, twice his actual margin. The good news for ... More >>

Working Families Party Says No Charges By U.S. Attorney. Now It's Cuomo's Move.

​The Working Families Party says that it received an all-clear last night from the U.S. Attorney's office ending its almost year-long probe of the party's campaign operations, including its Data & Field Services unit, with no charges filed. A spokeswoman for top prosecutor Preet Bharara says ... More >>

Grand Jury Probe of Mike's Indy Party Bucks Spells a Cuomo Conundrum

​The Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Capitol Tonight are all reporting -- without apparent fear of contradiction -- that a criminal grand jury has been convened to consider charges involving an Independence Party payment of $750,000 last fall to a Queens political operative. The grand jury ... More >>

Steve Levy Remembers To Forget His WFP Candidacy

Steve Levy, the newly hatched Republican gubernatorial candidate out of Suffolk County, keeps denying he was a candidate of the Working Families Party when he won reelection in 2007. This is either a minor brain spasm, or some kind of Soviet-style, rewriting of history-type deal. He just got in t ... More >>

Andrew Cuomo Gets an Attack Ad

Here's your first anti-Andrew Cuomo ad of the pre-season, sponsored by New Yorkers for Growth, a pro-business group that got 10 grand from local GOP boss Ed Cox and who want you to know that Cuomo has gone easy on... the Working Families Party, whose corruption has led to out-of-court settlements ... More >>

Working Families Party Staten Island Lawsuit Settled: Sources

​So much for the sensational scandal we were promised by former Giuliani deputy Randy Mastro in his blockbuster lawsuit against the campaign of rookie Staten Island councilwoman Debi Rose (pictured) and her Working Families Party allies. A settlement will be announced in court tomorrow, source ... More >>

Working Families Party Trial Starts; Debi Rose Treasurer Disavows Finance Affidavit

The suit brought by Randy Mastro and others against Data and Field Services, accusing DFS of providing (and Staten Island councimember Debi Rose, pictured, of accepting) in-kind contributions to Working Families Party in the form of discounted campaign work, went to trial yesterday in Staten Island ... More >>

Gunning for the Working Families Party

Landlords, lawyers fire at will

De Blasio, Others Subpoenaed on WFP; "ACORNing" Suspected

Remember when Randy Mastro and some Staten Island voters sued because they said Data and Field Services had willfully undercharged Working Families Party candidate Debi Rose, and thereby injured the voters' rights? WFP's now getting more heat of a similar nature. Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed ... More >>

Post: Staten Island DA Does "Preliminary" Probe of Working Families Party, Debi Rose Campaign

As previously noted, the feds have sent subpoenas to local politicians in furtherance of their investigation of the Working Families Party and Data and Field Services, who have been accused of financial improprieties in the last election. (Councilmember-elect Brad Lander just revealed that he got o ... More >>

Quick Hits

After complaints during the campaign about their connection with Data and Field Services and related unfavorable press reports, the Working Families Party has retained the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom to "conduct a thorough review of the structure and relationship between the W ... More >>

Barrett: Just How Strange and Pathetic was Bloomberg's Victory?

​The key question coming out of this election is whether Mike Bloomberg got the message. Can he listen to voters he'll never face again? If Bloomberg L.P took a hit like he did Tuesday, wouldn't the company take stock and make real changes? Bloomberg spent $80 million in 2005 and won by 19 p ... More >>

Election Day 2009: 6 Losers to Watch!

It's Election Day and, this being New York, no surprises are expected. As Runnin' Scared has no influence to peddle, we can afford to be brutally honest about this. The Mayor's reelection is treated as a foregone conclusion and, down-ticket, the Democrats are expected to romp (except in Staten Islan ... More >>

Rightbloggers Get a Scalp, and Perhaps a Party, in NY-23

On the weekend before a nationally-covered upstate New York Congressional election, the Republican candidate endorsed the Democratic candidate. This is a rarity in American politics, if not a first. Rightbloggers played a key role in this historical achievement. Let's step back several weeks and ... More >>

Anti-WFP Suit Charges Debi Rose Didn't Pay Enough for Services (or At Least Not Fast Enough) [Updated]

(Update: Dan Levitan of WFP has something to say about the "discounts," below the fold.) We've mentioned Data and Field Services, the election support outfit that was criticized by the Campaign Finance Board for giving discounts -- essentially in-kind contributions -- to Working Families Party candi ... More >>

Giuliani Endorses Working Families Party Candidate, Others

Having embarrassed Mayor Bloomberg sufficiently for one election, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is running around endorsing other candidates. Today he backed two Staten Island Republican councilmembers facing reelection challenges: James Oddo, who's up against James Pocchia, and Vincent Ignizio, fac ... More >>

Primary Day Continues with Flag-Burning Flyer

​Primary Day looks like it's going pretty much as usual -- that is, quietly -- though Azi Paybarah has found this last-minute flyer calling Manhattan city council candidate Ydanis Rodriguez an "anti-American flag burner." Rodriguez, considered the front-runner, has seven opponents and none has ... More >>

Campaign Finance Board Doles Out Matching Funds, Updates on Scandal (Updated)

The city's non-profit Campaign Finance Board has said it will dole out just over half a million dollars in matching funds to 42 candidates tomorrow morning -- the second-to-last financial package the candidates will receive before the September 15 primary election. Set to take in some of the large ... More >>

Paid Sick Leave Fans Jump on Swine Flu to Promote Bill

This swine flu thing has something for everybody. Supporters of the Earned Paid Sick Time bill -- which would require city businesses to give employees time off for illness, and is now before the city council -- see in the renewed interest in the bug an opportunity. Councilmember Gale Brewer, a tir ... More >>

Rose Continues Quest to Be First Black Official on Staten Island

As we like to point out, Staten Island is the only borough never to have elected a public official of color. But in the February special city council election to replace new Congressman Michael McMahon, Debi Rose came close, losing to Kenneth Mitchell by only 342 votes. The Democratic Primary for th ... More >>

Mayor Bloomberg Goes Party Shopping

Bloomie and Working Families agree only that he's likely to win—which may be enough

The Week in the Voice

Those Newburgh 4, arrested last month and charged with trying to blow up synagogues in a terror plot, were drawn into their alleged conspiracy by an informant known as Malik, working with the FBI to get out from under his own criminal record. Witnesses say that in addition to subjecting the men to c ... More >>

Bloomberg, Avella and Thompson at WFP Mayoral Forum: Some Highlights

Last night three candidates for Mayor of New York -- Michael Bloomberg, councilmember Tony Avella, and comptroller Bill Thompson -- attended the Working Families Party Mayoral Forum at the Hotel Trades Council on West 44th Street. (We should mention that Green Party candidate Reverend Billy wanted ... More >>

Endorsement Fever! Aborn, Others Clean Up

The Times says today that Manhattan D.A. candidate Richard Aborn "Aims to Raise His Profile" in that race, and that he does so mainly via endorsements. We'll say -- his office alerts us to each one (other candidates are also encouraged to do so), and he's had plenty, most recently those of four Demo ... More >>

Working Families Party Endorses Liu for Comptroller

Sometimes he seems like a bit of a crackpot, but you can't write off John Liu. Remember the stink he made, as transportation chair of the council, about getting GPS in school buses? After years of struggle, he's about to get 'em. He got something else last night: the endorsement for comptroller of t ... More >>

Bloomberg Gains GOP Nomination, Said to Seek WFP Nod Too

This weekend Mayor Bloomberg won the endorsement of the Bronx Republican Party, more or less ensuring that he will appear on the Republican as well as the Independence Party line in November's mayoral race. (He may face a primary challenge, but is expected to make short work of it.) Notwithstanding ... More >>

AIG Execs Protested, Hassled; Time for a New Outrage?

Bloomberg's Term-Limits Coup: Heroes, Villains, and Wimps

Brutal brawling in the first throwdown of the 2009 elections

The 'Sure Thing' Stakes: Spitzer vs. Spitzer

The Repo Man: Seeking Volunteers to Reclaim Congress

Papa Smurf Runs for Mayor

Bloomie's Party Poopers

Council Cliffhanger

Visiting the Eva Empire

Ballot Battles Break Backs

Democrats Miss Key Endorsement

Bleeding Hearts

How Guy's guys (and gals) plead his case

Sundown on the Patronage Party

Liberals Sink as Working Families Rise

Which Third Way?

Greens and the Working Families Party Try to Make Progressive Votes Count

Letters

Outer-Borough Battler

A Labor Leader Challenges His Own

To Play the King

Brooklyn's Chance to Anoint the Next Council Speaker Is Slipping Through the Fault Lines

Machine Politics

How to Vote and Make Your Vote Count

Working Papers

Domino’s Strikers Again Choose the Cold Over Surrender, While Labor Celebrates Some Victories and a Painter-Hero

Nader, Schmader!

A Third-Party Alternative? Try the Working Families Party.

Finally, a Progressive Party

Working families party forges a left-liberal coalition