May 2017 update on NYPD placard abuse

When you post photos of an NYPD vehicle with a placard used in violation of the Patrol Guide, whether or not the vehicle was illegally parked - - on Twitter - - you are reporting corruption, right?   Not according to one Brooklyn precinct who blocked Placard Abuse for good, and people in Twitter are starting to cry foul against the NYPD.

In my continuing reports of parking abuse by the NYPD, such as the Inside Edition report of illegal plastic covers  as well as false 311 reports  and parking abuse by other agencies, some current developments are taking place.

1.  72nd Precinct Blocks Placard Abuse:  Earlier this month, the ever versatile Placard Abuse reported a tweet that one of the placards issued and maintained by the 72nd Precinct in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, was misused by another driver (using the assigned placard in a different vehicle is in violation of the NYPD Patrol Guide), a common practice across most NYPD Precincts and central offices.   And what happened next?   The 72nd Precinct took to their twitter account and blocked him.   I spoke to Commanding Officer, Captain Emmanuel Gomez for blocking hiding your corruption.   BTW:   Why wasn't this vehicle with expired NYS DMV safety/emissions sticker, and illegally parked in No Standing Anytime Zone (with a 72nd Precinct placard displayed) also addressed? )  Update:  Both the 72nd and 49th Precincts unblocked us.


2. The NYPD Surgeon takes in a Broadway Show:   Dr. Richard Leinhardt, a part-time NYPD surgeon was busted for using his NYPD issued placard to park in front of a Broadway theater while attending the show inside.   If he car afford a Mercedes, then he can afford to garage it in Manhattan.   No surprise that NYPD placards are going around like water - - every cop needs some.

3.   MTA Board Member does the NYPD Surgeon placard thingy too:   Outspoken MTA Board Member Charles Moerdler (he is the one with the glasses who questions almost everything at Committee and Board meetings), acted like a tough guy when he was also caught using his MTA Police issued placard to illegally park in front of a swanky hotel, on East 44th Street    I should question him in the June MTA Committee meetings

4.  De Blasio's 50,000 placard question:  Thanks to NYC Mayor De Blasio and an arbitrator's decision benefiting the United Federation of Teachers, 50,000 new placards were issued to NYC Department of Education teachers, administrators and support staff.   and with only 11,000 parking spaces available for school employees in those "No Parking, School Days", you know the other 39,000 employees will go to great lengths to illegally park at bus stops, hydrants, bike lanes, etc.   The response from De Blasio??   "No big deal".   That's why former NYC DOT Commissioner Samuel "Gridlock Sam" Schwartz was spot on in the above link, saying that anyone with a parking placard will abuse it,


5.  NY1 gets real with Placard Abuse:  On the NY1 daily news show, The Road to City Hall, host Errol Louis touched on the second half of this video with some brilliant observations of placard abuse .  Truth be told, that as much as Placard Abuse can do only so much on Twitter (along with a dozen others, including me), we don't get noticed by the news media that much.  Mr. Louis, along with Inside Edition's Lisa Guerrero busting up those license plate covers on NYPD personal vehicles, show that they care about eroding corruption, no matter how big or small it is.  Thank you Mr. Louis for your fine work on that show, ending that it won't be the last segment on this cancer which erodes our trust in NYC government.

6.  Mayor De Blasio Announces Placard Crackdown:  Yesterday, I visited the City Hall in the Bronx open house to ask Mayor De Blasio about the placard crackdown - - De Blasio announced today he was doing a real placard abuse crackdown, for real.   Thanks to PlacardAbuse and others (including me) on Twitter, we have forced a hand with the Mayor and NYPD Police Commissioner James O'Neill.   While the newest crackdown will address some issues, it fails to tackle important matters, such as NY State and Federal placard abuse, nor does this crackdown go after Theft Vests, those who use construction vests as placards to steal valuable parking and possibly evading the cost of feeding meters.   The crackdown does not mention NYC and NY State placards on out-of-state registered vehicles, a very common abuse by the NY State Court Officers, nor on vehicles with expired NY State registration and inspection stickers/  Let's hope this crackdown is not a band-aid which will dissipate in a few days and the crooks will return back to their illegal and corrupt ways of parking abuse.



Some pictures of the month:

NYPD and Manhattan DA placards on out-of-state registered vehicles.  The NYPD placard is also blank, meaning that there is no vehicle plate # assigned to it.  The Manhattan DA placard expired almost a month ago.

NY State Court Officer with illegal front and rear plate covers over #KALLEL 


Serious crosswalk obstruction with multiple vehicles having NYS placards  - right where Mayor De Blasio held his open house.

I will follow up over the summer to see how the newest crackdown is doing.  Regardless of the future outcome, I wanted to give extra special thanks and kudos to PlacardAbuse whom we have me tweeting and reporting placard corruption - - surely it won't be the end.

President Trump's tax and health care plans - - all for the 1 percenters

If anyone has any doubts that President Trump is all for the 1 percenters - and not for the 99 percenters, look no further than the latest tax reform and health care plans.   Right to the point it screws the middle class, especially homeowners and those with pre-existing conditions, while benefiting the 1 one percent of all earners.


The smoke and mirrors objectives on Trump's tax plan can be found in left (fake) and right (real) leaning stories - - such as Fox Business telling the top 5 great benefits  of the 2017 tax reform.   On the other side, the tax plan will hurt taxpayers who rely on state and local income taxes as part of their itemized deductions - - especially homeowners in high property tax states like California and New York who pay up to 15K annually.  But first, compare President Trump's tax plan to this plan he "proposed" while running for office - - which had 4 income tax brackets, including no tax liability for married couples up to 50K and just 15 percent for single filers up to 150K (married couples up to 300K). However most filers will give up a lot of "unspecified" deductions which would still be offset by eliminating most tax and the troubles of itemizing deductions, but keeps the wonderful mortgage interest and charitable deductions.  Yes, the wealthiest get a huge cut from 39.6 percent down to 25 percent and that is a problem for me, but at least that plan benefitted the working class a lot.


Now Trump is President, his new one page proposed plan calls for 15/25/35 percent income tax brackets instead of his originally proposed 4 tax brackets, while still eliminating most deductions.   Nothing was mentioned about the specific income levels in relation to each tax bracket but it's not much of a difference from the current 7 brackets. Even when standard deductions are doubled, President Trump still wants to eliminate most deductions and he certainly has said nothing about the Earned Income Credit which was helped low income families with child dependents.

And as of this blog post, President Trump is on the verge of replacing former President Obama's Affordable Care Act, or more commonly know as Obamacare with the American Health Care Act of 2017 or what we call Trumpcare.    Take a look at the moderate website, The Hill's, comparisons between Obamacare and Trumpcare  and surely you will see that while the revised plan will allow more people to be insured than the first disastrous draft, it will cost a lot more for older patients and those with pre-existing conditions.  And allocating only $8 billion for a high risk pool of those who cannot afford the premiums, it will not be enough as estimates call for upwards of $200 billion.


Personally, I never was a fan of Obamacare either, with the communist approach of requiring everyone to have health insurance or pay an IRS penalty - - as well as buying insurance within the state marketplace instead of buying insurance across state lines and I am vehemently opposed to covering abortion and contraception - - it is a woman's choice for her to either abstain until marriage or have premarital sex - - the government should not be paying for what a woman decided which got her pregnant if she was not able to take care of the newborn.  but now with Trumpcare, it's worse with more people will not be able to afford to buy insurance in the marketplace with pre-existing conditions while the wealthiest 1 percent, according to Politifact, will receive two tax breaks.


Once again, the establishment has screwed the working middle class.  Shame!!!