ALERT: 10-4-13
Message from CJA’s Director
Elena Sassower
SPREAD THE WORD!
MEDIA DEVELOPMENTS:
CJA’s
People’s Campaign
to Hold the Commission to Investigate Public Corruption True
to its Name & Announced Purpose
WONDERFUL MEDIA DEVELOPMENTS!
As you know from my prior e-mail ALERTS,
the Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc. (CJA) has launched a “People’s
Campaign to Hold the Commission to Investigate Public Corruption True to its
Name & Announced Purpose”, now accessible from our homepage, www.judgewatch.org.
Our goal is to alert victims of judicial
corruption – as well as others having knowledge and experience of the breadth
of public corruption in this state – to the HUGE opportunity we all have to
bring forward our information and evidence to the Commission – and to do so publicly,
to prevent it from covering up and pretending that it is cleaning up our
government, when it is barely scratching the surface! My prior ALERTS,
setting forth the details, are posted on our “Opportunity for Action”
webpage. Here’s the direct link: http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/cja/action-alert.htm
In going up to Albany for the Commission’s
September 24th so-called “public hearing”, I did not just quietly
sit in the audience. I shouted out my support for the testimony of the
final witness, Mark Sacha, a whistleblowing former
assistant district attorney, who spoke, from his own direct, first-hand
experience, about how district attorneys cover up political corruption cases
because of conflicts of interest – identifying, specifically, Erie County
District Attorney Frank Sedita, a member of the
Commission. And when the Commission then closed the topic-limited hearing
half-an-hour early, without announcing any further hearings or allowing
testimony at the Albany hearing on topics other than “campaign finance, outside
income of state elected officials or political party housekeeping accounts”, I rushed
forward to publicly ask what so many of you have asked me: when will the
Commission be holding hearings for the public to testify about the breadth of
public corruption in this state? I also protested that the Albany
hearing had been conducted without the backdrop banner “Restoring the Public
Trust”, which had been used at the September 17th Manhattan hearing,
and that the Commission’s name was not “Moreland Commission” – as was imprinted
on the sign hanging from the dais for the Albany hearing – but “Commission to
Investigate Public Corruption”, so-identified by the Executive Order creating
it and on the banner that had hung from the dais at the Manhattan
hearing.
As a result of this activism, I was
approached by Cynthia Pooler, a retiree whose passion for politics has led her
to a new career in internet radio, with a show called “Focus on Albany”.
She asked if I would be willing to be interviewed about the Commission.
I’m pleased to report that Cynthia not only interviewed me, but is eager to develop
further shows about our “People’s Campaign to Hold the Commission to
Investigate Public Corruption True to its Name & Announced
Purpose”. Here’s the direct link for her interview of me entitled “Center
for Judicial Accountability, Inc. Seeks Public Participation in the Commission
to Investigate Public Corruption”: http://www.focusonalbany.com/radio-interviews/item/94-elena-sassower-seeks-public-participation-in-the-moreland-commission
. Please listen – and share the link with others. That’s how
internet radio works. We need to build our audience!!
For Cynthia’s next show – in about two
weeks – she has proposed interviewing some of people who had registered for the
Commission’s hearings who were turned away. Isn’t that
spectacular! Call me if you would like to be interviewed on
Cynthia’s show about your experience – or if you would like me to speak for
you, summarizing what you submitted to the Commission as part of your
registration and the last-minute phone calls and e-mails you received, turning
you away, or, in some cases, telling you that you would be listed to testify,
only to discover, thereafter, that you were not. When you contact me, we can
review together the documents I should post with your names as part of our
webpage “The People Have Something to Say – and Evidence to Back It Up!” Here’s
the direct link: http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/searching-nys/commission-to-investigate-public-corruption/people-evidence/menu-people-evidence.htm.
This is not the only important media
development to report. Our own intrepid Will Galison – a CJA member of
many years standing, who is a fabulous musician, with a sideline as a citizen
journalist– used the half-hour that the Commission cut from its September 24th
Albany hearing to approach the Commission’s Executive Director, Regina Calcaterra, and Legislative Director, John Amodeo, questioning them, with video running. These
revealing interviews, he has spruced up with dramatic music and explanatory
text to underscore the discrepancy between the Commission’s name and purpose
and how it is operating. I have posted Will’s September 24th
trilogy of videos on a new webpage within our People’s Campaign, entitled
“Building Our Own People’s Media”. Here’s the direct link: http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/searching-nys/commission-to-investigate-public-corruption/people%27s%20media/people%27s-media.htm
. It is on this webpage that I have also posted Cynthia’s internet radio
interview of me – and where I will post her future shows about the Commission
and our People’s Campaign.
Finally, I am pleased to report that we
haven’t been entirely ignored by “mainstream” media. Casey Seiler of the Albany
Times Union, included a colorful description of my interjection
during Mark Sacha’s testimony at the Commission’s
September 24th hearing for the newspaper’s “Capitol Confidential”
blog, also furnishing a link to our website! Here’s the direct link to
what he wrote: http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/195633/more-moreland-fired-buffalo-ada-calls-out-frank-sedita/
.
Remember, SPREAD
THE WORD! Forward this e-mail to others. I am available to
assist you in drafting your written statements to the Commission, in support of
your requests to testify, publicly – or to assist in you in making a
confidential/anonymous submission, if such is necessary.
Best,
Elena Sassower, Director
Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc. (CJA)
914-455-4373
elena@judgewatch.org