THE NEW YORK TIMES

March 20, 2019
"Understanding The Times:
How The Times Decides What To Investigate"

"Reader Center -- Understanding The Times"    "Times Insider"

New York Times -- www.nytimes.com/tips

CJA's March 20, 2019 e-mail to TIPS@NYTIMES.COM --
"Responding to 'How The Times Decides
What to Investigate' by 4 TIPS"

1. “THE BUDGET IS OFF THE CONSTITUTIONAL RAILS” – AND SO-PARTICULARIZED BY A CITIZEN-TAXPAYER ACTION, NOW AT THE NEW YORK COURT OF APPEALS.

(The citizen-taxpayer action, brought by our non-partisan, non-profit citizens’ organization, Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc. (CJA), sues New York’s three government branches and furnishes the law and EVIDENCE establishing the unconstitutionality and unlawfulness of the legislative budget, the judiciary budget, and the executive budget – including the unconstitutionality and unlawfulness of the commission-based judicial salary increases it embeds, arising from a statute inserted into the fiscal year 2015-2016 budget by the “three-men-in-a-room” as part of their budget deal-making.  Among the lawsuit’s ten causes of action is one challenging the constitutionality of “three-men-in-a-room” budget deal-making – the FIRST such cause of action ever, as, likewise, the first-ever challenge to behind-closed-door legislative party conferences that substitute for open legislative committee meetings – http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/searching-nys/budget/citizen-taxpayer-action/2nd/menu-2nd-citizen-taxpayer-action.htm; 

2. THE FISCAL YEAR 2019-2020 BUDGET, HAPPENING NOW, is REPEATING ALL THE CONSTITUTIONAL, STATUTORY, AND LEGISLATIVE RULE VIOLATIONS OF  THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2018-2019 & ALL PRIOR RECENT YEARS.   

(The Senate and Assembly “amended” budget bills, released last week and embodied in last week’s Senate and Assembly one-house budget resolutions – were NEVER “amended” by any legislator voting at a committee meeting and the alterations they make to the Governor’s budget bills flagrantly violate Article VII, §4 of the NYS Constitution.  The joint Senate/Assembly budget conference committees, convened last week, have VANISHED from view – being only “fronts” for behind-closed-doors staff maneuverings and the “three-men-in-a-room” budget deal-making of the Governor, Temporary Senate President, and Assembly Speaker, NOW underway, further “amending”, behind-closed-doors, budget bills without a vote to “amend” by a single legislator &, again, in ways flagrantly violating Article VII, §4  – http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/searching-nys/2019-legislative/2019-finance-ways-means.htm; http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/searching-nys/2019-legislative/senate-budget-revenues.htm; http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/searching-nys/2019-legislative/back-to-both-houses.htm);

3. WHEN IT COMES TO THE CORRUPTION OF THE BUDGET, INCLUDING OF THE LEGISLATURE’s OWN BUDGET, THE PUBLIC IS BEREFT OF LEGISLATORS SAFEGUARDING THE PUBLIC PURSE & THE NEW YORK STATE CONSTITUTION. 

(There is no empirical difference between (a) “full-time” legislators versus “part-time” legislators; (b) lawyer legislators versus non-lawyer legislators; (c) newbie legislators versus veteran legislators; (d) Democratic &/or “progressive” legislators versus Republican &/or “conservative” legislators.  None will confront law or EVIDENCE – and there isn’t a whistle-blower among them: http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/searching-nys/2019-legislative/menu-2019-legislative-session.htm);

4. THE “FORCE OF LAW” LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE SALARY INCREASES RECOMMENDED BY THE DECEMBER 10, 2018 REPORT OF THE COMPENSATION COMMITTEE, ORIGINATING FROM PART HHH OF LAST YEAR’S REVENUE BUDGET BILL, INSERTED BY THE “THREE-MEN-IN-THE-ROOM”, ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL, STATUTORILY-VIOLATIVE, AND FRAUDULENT.
   
   (This stunning larceny will be exposed and ended by investigation of ANY of the foregoing three TIPS.  A good place to start is the VIDEO of my oral testimony before the Compensation Committee, at its November 30, 2018 public hearing, IMMEDIATELY following the testimony of Assembly Speaker Heastie, and including my more particularized written testimony and the EVIDENCE I handed up: http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/searching-nys/2018-legislature/hhh-compensation-committee/cja-testimony-11-30-18.htm.  Also, my December 6, 2018 letter to Assembly Speaker Heastie, with a copy to the Compensation Committee: http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/searching-nys/2018-legislature/hhh-compensation-committee/12-6-18-ltr-to-heastie.htm, thereafter furnished again to Assembly Speaker Heastie and to Temporary Senate President Stewart-Cousins, Senate Minority Leader Flanagan, and Assembly Minority Leader Kolb by a January 24, 2019 e-mail furnishing further corroborative facts and EVIDENCE: http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/searching-nys/2019-legislative/2019-leadership.htm).

 ----------------------------------------------------

NYT's version of its journalistic responsibilities --

March 16, 2019
"How to Challenge Albany's Corrupt Culture" (editorial)

March 18, 2019
"3 Young Lawmakers Share a Progressive Vision, and a 7-Room Apartment"
(Vivian Wang)

March 29, 2019
"The Budget New York Needs"  (editorial)

March 31, 2019
"New York State Budget Deal Brings Congestion Pricing,
Plastic Bag Ban and Mansion Tax"
(Jesse McKinley, Vivian Wang)

“'The process seems very similar,' said Blair Horner, the executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, and a former aide to Mr. Cuomo. 'But the product is obviously very different because you have a new majority in the Senate.'
...

Most of the deals announced on Sunday were largely made behind closed doors, and left to the 11th hour: Voting was likely to push right up to, and perhaps past, the midnight deadline.

Mr. Cuomo, who has been criticized for sponsoring big-money fund-raisers, also announced a commission to develop a plan to provide up to $100 million annually in public financing for campaigns for legislative and statewide offices, including his own. The commission’s recommendations, due in December, would be legally binding unless the Legislature convened specifically to overrule them.
... Asked why he had chosen to form a commission rather than allowing public hearings and a legislative solution, Mr. Cuomo said that the issue was 'too complicated' to be taken up by the state’s 213 elected lawmakers."

April 11, 2019
"A Shouting Match, Nasty Personal Attacks, and a Growing Rift Among N.Y. Democrats"
(Vivian Wang)

April 12, 2019:
"Who is 'Fnu Lun'?", (Azi Paybarah)

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