NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio clearly dispises reporters, edtors, and taxpayers who decide to question his actions, his ethics or his Truth.
This is just plain ugh.
Betsy Combier
ADVOCATZ.com
De Blasio lets security haul away Post reporter for asking a question
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| A bodyguard removes Post reporter Kevin Sheehan (right) from asking Bill de Blasio (left) questions. Brigitte Stelzer |
The unusual muzzling unfolded at the start of the annual Dominican Day Parade in Manhattan, where the reporter sought de Blasio’s reaction to The Post’s front page story about his administration’s many meetings with lobbyists.
It also came after Hizzoner appeared on national TV Sunday to proclaim, “I believe in a free, strong media with diverse views — I’ll defend it with all I’ve got.”
Just two hours later, after de Blasio cut a ribbon to kick off the parade and was posing for photos near West 37th Street and Sixth Avenue, the reporter asked him to comment on the Page One “CITY FOR SALE” story.
Instead of answering or even declining to answer the question, the mayor watched as two members of his NYPD security detail approached the reporter — who was wearing a police-issued press pass around his neck — with one grabbing his shoulder and leading him away from the mayor.
“Kevin, you have to leave. You can’t be here,” the plainclothes cop said.
Both bodyguards then escorted the reporter about a half-block away, where a member of the NYPD’s public information office, Officer Brian Magoolaghan, told him, “Come on, Kevin. No stunts today.”
City Hall had previously declined to discuss records that showed officials held 136 meetings with lobbyists during just three months earlier this year.
The incident was reminiscent of one last month when the White House barred a CNN reporter from a Rose Garden event for shouting “inappropriate” questions at President Trump in the Oval Office earlier in the day.
Those questions involved audio recordings of Trump made secretly by his then-personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and Trump’s invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the White House.
Earlier Sunday, de Blasio appeared on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” to discuss an interview last week with the Guardian, a liberal British newspaper, in which he criticized The Post’s parent company, News Corp, and its founder and executive chairman, Rupert Murdoch.
At one point, host Brian Stelter pressed de Blasio about his criticism of The Post, which the mayor has called a “right-wing rag.”
“Why do you feel it’s your role to be calling out a newspaper because you don’t like the content?” Stelter asked.
“Because I think it’s not happening enough. … It’s not happening the way I think it should,” de Blasio answered.
De Blasio’s press secretary referred questions about the incident at the parade to the NYPD, which said in an email: “The Department takes appropriate and necessary measures to protect dignitaries, including the Mayor of the City of New York.”
Additional reporting by Ben Feuerherd
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| Ritchie Torres (left) and Bill de Blasio [Richard Harbus/Ron Sachs] |
NY POST, May 28, 2018
A city councilman on Sunday said he favored legislation requiring greater disclosure about City Hall’s meetings with lobbyists, in the wake of a Post expose that revealed 136 such sit-downs during just three months this year.
Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) said vague entries in the official “Lobbyist Meeting Disclosure” database set up by Mayor de Blasio failed to shed sufficient light on what went on behind closed doors.
“It’s opacity masquerading as transparency,” said Torres, who heads the council’s Committee on Oversight and Investigations.
“If you’re telling the public you’re having a meeting, that tells you nothing about the substance of the meeting.”
Torres also derided multiple listings showing am official “meet & greet” with representatives of the real-estate industry, who met members of the de Blasio administration 46 times between March 1 and May 31.
“A meet-and-greet five years into the administration with established players in the real estate industry is implausible,” Torres said.
“There should be more detailed reporting.”
Development and housing issues were the most frequently listed subject of the lobbyist meetings, with 16 meetings about cultural institutions a distant second.
Records don’t reveal whether any of the real-estate discussions involved de Blasio’s potential plan to allow construction of a high-rise tower with market-rate apartments on a New York City Housing Authority-owned parking lot in Hell’s Kitchen.
Torres said he suspected the Harborview Terrace development plan was part of a desperate bid by de Blasio to pay for $31.8 billion worth of NYCHA renovations, some of which are mandated by the pending settlement of a safe-housing suit filed by the feds.
“Repairs do not pay for themselves,” said Torres, who grew up in public housing.
“There is no NYCHA fairy coming the rescue.”
