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Watch: NYC City Council Race Heats Up — Yetta Kurland Releases First Campaign Advertisement

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Yetta Kurland, a civil rights attorney who has served New York and the LGBT community for almost two decades, is running for New York City Council and just released her first paid video ad. The 90-second spot showcases her work in the community, including fighting to save St. Vincent’s Hospital and helping residents in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which hit the New York/New Jersey metro area especially hard.

Kurland, who talks about the importance of “coalition building” in her new video, is running to represent the Hell’s Kitchen, Chelsea  and West Village neighborhoods, a seat currently held by NYC mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn, who is term-limited.

In the video Kurland, who recently hosted a weekly radio show, promises to “fight to make sure that we have a hospital for our community.”

“As a civil rights attorney, I’ve represented New Yorkers in their fights to keep affordable housing,” Kurland says. “I’ve represented folks to make sure that they’ve had fair work environments and fair wages for their work. I have stood up to the most powerful special interests in this city to fight to restore hospital services. And as the next City Councilmember for the lower West side of Manhattan, I will fight to make sure that we have a hospital for our community.”

New York City’s St. Vincent’s Hospital, founded in 1849, was a major teaching hospital that housed a large HIV/AIDS program. It closed in 2010 under what many believe were suspicious circumstances and to make way for real estate development, leaving the neighborhood without hospital services.

“Kurland identifies the need ‘to come together as a community’ and references her strong background in coalition building to deliver for New Yorkers,” a press release states. “Kurland boasts a wide range of endorsements ranging from key unions such as DC37, women’s groups such as the National Organization for Women NYC Chapter, and leaders in the LGBTQ community or communities of color such as City Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez.”

“Yetta Kurland is a civil rights attorney and small business owner who has created jobs in New York for close to twenty years. As an attorney, she has represented tenants in housing cases and won court victories in the struggle for equality for LGBT people. When St. Vincent’s Hospital was closed to make way for luxury housing, Kurland led the fight for a new hospital for West Side residents, leading the Coalition for a New Village Hospital. Kurland is running for City Council in District 3, her home for more than two decades. The district encompasses Hell’s Kitchen, Chelsea and the West Village. Kurland lives in Chelsea with her two Italian Greyhounds, Luca and Salvatore.”

Kurland was honored earlier this month by the Women’s Democratic Club of New York City and has received dozens of endorsements, including most recently endorsements from former NYC Mayor David Dinkins, former NYC Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, former Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, Emily’s List, the Amalgamated Transit Union, Democracy for America and Jim Dean, and Patricia Rudden and Judith Slomack.

Kurland is online, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

 

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‘Less Blame Game, More Solutions’: Duffy Urged to ‘Do Your Job and Stop Whining’

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U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is under fire for deflecting blame over the escalating crisis at Newark Liberty International Airport—issues his department has yet to resolve. Critics point to his references to “cracks in the system” nationwide and a so-called “Brand New Air Traffic Control System Plan” that, so far, lacks meaningful public detail.

Politico described the Secretary’s lack of specifics by saying that the “Trump administration has closely held the exact contents of Duffy’s plan, but it’s likely to contain some combination of investments in new technologies, facilities upgrades and consolidation along with money for air traffic controller retention and hiring and overhauling the FAA’s infrastructure that allows facilities to communicate together.”

There is already “a multibillion-dollar FAA program called NextGen, which aims to transition the country away from passive radars to a satellite-based system for tracking planes, has been ongoing since 2003,” including during the Biden administration. And, as Politico also reported, the “agency is also in the early stages of a $2.4 billion, 15-year contract with Verizon, issued during the Biden administration, to replace the copper wires that have plagued Newark with modern fiber-optic cables across the country.”

READ MORE: GOP Plan Redefines Dependent Child as ‘Under 7’—But Adds Loophole for Married Couples

But according to Secretary Duffy, “Biden and Buttigieg ignored the warning signs at Newark. It was shameful.”

National security and civil liberties journalist Marcy Wheeler commented, “if this guy would just stop blaming the President whose efforts to fix FAA Republicans refused to fund and did something he might actually fix the problem. Stop whining, Crash @SecDuffy. Please do your job and stop whining.”

Duffy has repeatedly attacked his predecessor and the prior administration, attempting to blame the current crisis on them.

“So the blame belongs to the last administration?” asked former Marine F/A-18 pilot and Democratic former political candidate Amy McGrath. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The last administration passed major legislation for funding the fix [to transportation] infrastructure problems DESPITE Republicans (like Duffy) voting against it for years.”

“More lies from another failed reality show contestant,” charged U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY). “Also, pointing fingers instead of addressing our current air traffic issues? Passengers are delayed, airlines are struggling & ATC is understaffed. We need action, not excuses. Less blame game, more solutions.”

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CNN’s David Axelrod mocked Duffy, writing: “Nothing like taking responsibility.”

And Professor of Public Policy Robert Reich, the former Clinton Labor Secretary, added, “when Sean Duffy was a congressman, he and other Republicans voted against upgrading air traffic control systems. Now, he’s trying to blame those systems for Newark airport’s outages – while claiming DOGE’s cuts of critical support staff at the FAA had nothing to do with it. Hello?”

Secretary Duffy on Tuesday warned, “We’re starting to see cracks in the system.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Bystander’ Trump Keeps Saying ‘I Don’t Know’ — Critics Ask ‘Who’s in Charge?’

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GOP Plan Redefines Dependent Child as ‘Under 7’—But Adds Loophole for Married Couples

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House Republicans, intent on increasing work requirements for assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and promoting marriage, have devised a new definition for “dependent child.” Currently, an adult has a dependent child if that child is under 18 years of age. Under the new proposed House definition for SNAP, once that child turns seven—usually someone in second grade—they could no longer be considered a dependent, with one exception.

The new House proposal also adds ten years to the time when the adult needs to continue working in order to receive SNAP benefits, from 54 to 64 years of age. However, it removes the work requirement if the adult with the dependent child is married and lives with someone who already complies with the new regulations. Unmarried couples with a child would not qualify for the exemption.

The new proposal would be part of Republicans’ legislation that would provide $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, largely benefiting the wealthy.

READ MORE: GOP ‘Voucher Scheme for the Wealthy’ Would Hand $5 Billion to Religious, Private Schools

The new bill refers to work requirements for “Able Bodied Adults Without Dependents,” or ABAWD. It reads:

“Specifically, this section would increase the age with which ABAWDs must continue working to qualify for SNAP to 64 (up from 54 currently); it changes the generic, functional definition of ‘dependent child’ for ABAWD purposes from under 18 years of age to under 7; and it carves out an exception to the work requirements for a person responsible for a child 7 years of age or older who is married and resides with an individual who complies with the SNAP work requirements.”

An April 30 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reveals that the GOP’s proposal “could take food away from millions of people in low-income households who are struggling to find steady work or who face substantial barriers to employment, including families with children.”

That report also notes that “the people who would be newly at risk of losing food assistance under the Johnson proposal include…1.4 million older adults aged 55 through 64 without children in their homes,” “More than 3 million adults who live with school-aged children,” “Veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young people who have aged out of foster care,” and, “About 1.6 million people living in areas without enough jobs.”

The move also comes as states lower or remove protections for child workers.

Last year, the Center for American Progress published a report titled, “Project 2025 Would Exploit Child Labor by Allowing Minors To Work in Dangerous Conditions With Fewer Protections.”

READ MORE: ‘Bystander’ Trump Keeps Saying ‘I Don’t Know’ — Critics Ask ‘Who’s in Charge?’

 

Image via Reuters

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GOP ‘Voucher Scheme for the Wealthy’ Would Hand $5 Billion to Religious, Private Schools

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Speaker Mike Johnson’s House Republicans want to insert a provision into their massive tax cuts bill that would create a system to hand private and religious schools $5 billion annually and wealthy donors yet another tax break.

Calling it an “unprecedented effort to use public money to pay for private education,” the Associated Press reports that it “would advance President Donald Trump’s agenda of establishing ‘universal school choice’ by providing families nationwide the option to give their children an education different from the one offered in their local public school.”

If enacted, the system would provide a vehicle for donors to donate cash or stocks, then receive full value via a tax credit —”100% of the contribution back in the form of a discount on their tax bills,” according to the AP. “It would allow stock holders to avoid paying taxes that would be levied if they donated or transferred the stock.”

READ MORE: ‘Bystander’ Trump Keeps Saying ‘I Don’t Know’ — Critics Ask ‘Who’s in Charge?’

Samantha Jacoby, Deputy Director of Federal Tax Policy with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities described it as “a new federal tax credit to subsidize private school vouchers — effectively the first nationwide voucher program.” She called it “a costly tax break for the wealthy [with] an egregious capital gains tax loophole.”

Jacoby added, “this is a much more generous tax break than the existing charitable deduction. The max benefit from the deduction is 37 cents per $ donated, but the voucher credit would make taxpayers fully whole; i.e., the federal government pays the full cost of the vouchers.”

Critics are blasting the proposal.

“Voters have never approved vouchers in any state,” noted public education advocate Mike DeGuire, Ph.D. “Now the Republican-led Congress wants to spend billions to gut public education with their voucher scheme for the wealthy.”

“Trump and his cronies want [to] kick 9 million vulnerable people off Medicaid to pay for (1) tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, and (2) $5 BILLION to send to religious schools that are unaccountable to taxpayers,” observed constitutional attorney Andrew L. Seidel, a vice president at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

In 2019, then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos proposed a similar program, Education Freedom Scholarships, which was met with opposition by Democrats.

Then-U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) called it “a shell game to fund private and religious schools and their providers using taxpayers as the middleman.”

READ MORE: ‘Barely Literate’: Education Secretary’s ‘Deranged’ Letter Gets Major Red Ink Corrections

 

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