Daily News feature exposes a small piece of the kind of CORRUPT “change” that State Senator Martin Golden’s “Republicans for Change” are really all about, starting at the Board of Elections
A Daily News opinion piece that is very important for Brooklyn Republicans opened in a deceptively “matter of fact” fashion, as follows: “With primary elections for mayor and other offices less than a month away, the Board of Elections has been training 30,000 poll workers , a mission complicated by the return of the old lever voting machines. Uh, oh. *** Herewith are two reports from the field, submitted by people who underwent poll-worker training last week in Brooklyn....” ( See “Board of incompetence — It's uh-oh season again for the Board of Elections,” NY Daily News Opinion, 8/12/13 [http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/board-incompetence-article-1.1422987#ixzz2blluCm3l]). This article is just like one piece of a much larger puzzle involving the Brooklyn Republican Party and the emergent scandal or series of scandals at the Board of Elections.
My focus for now is on only one person that was mentioned in the Daily News Article – Henry Lallave, the GOP State Committee member from the 51st AD. Lallave is now one of the few operators for Golden’s “Republicans for Change” functioning outside the boundaries of Golden’s State Senate District. Henry Lallave had been a loyalist of Republican County Chairman Craig Eaton until State Senator Golden had pulled the rug on his man Eaton and pushed the Simon Shamoun coup at the BOE, all of which had been engineered earlier this year. Until his “rice bowl” was effected by the top down GOP changes at the BOE, Lallave was not just a routine Republican District Leader from an overwhelmingly Democratic district, he was a reliable backer of the Republican county organization, as well as the former semi-regular on the Brooklyn GOP Blog Radio program, describing Henry Lallave as being from “Area 51” and with the recognizable “X Files” theme music playing in the background.
Making sure that everybody knows that its reporters are giving the stories of flesh and blood malefactors, and not some made up tragi-comical composites, the Daily News gave out the name and number of certain BOE employees, like this: “Meanwhile, our correspondent from a training session for poll site coordinators, who are in charge at each voting location, described the instruction imparted by trainer Henry Lallave, a Brooklyn Republican state committeeman.”
Here is the verbatim account that appeared in the Daily News with respect to the "Republicans for Change" operator, Henry Lallave:
“The class was due to start at 9:00 a.m. It began at 9:25 a.m., at which point Lallave opened with a long introduction on how easy the class would be. He advised the 16 trainees they “didn’t have to turn off their phones.” By then it was 10:00 a.m. *** Then he got to the important stuff: apparel, warning men not to wear muscle shirts and women not to wear midriff-revealing garments as it could ‘distract men, who might walk into walls.’ *** No shorts should be worn, which led to a discussion about blue jeans, which are okay if “clean and pressed.” No hats are allowed, except for religious reasons. *** According to our correspondent, Lallave offered not a word about managing poll workers. To prep for the test, Lallave went over some of the test questions and answers, leading one of trainees to complain that he was wasn’t going in order. *** Then it was test time, with one coordinator cribbing answers from another. And those are the people who plan to be charge....”
Sociologists or Social Psychologists would look at the Daily News description of the behavior of the Board of Elections instructor, Republican District Leader, Henry Lallave as one item of data to be placed in a much larger mosaic. A phenomenologist might call it an epiphenomenon, and demonstrate that it is something not unlike the behavior of birds and other animals in advance of an earthquake.
So far this year, State Senator Golden led the march for the return of the antiquated multiple levered voting machines — the very same mechanical machines that had a notorious breakdown rate prior to their replacement by the electronic reader-counter machines — that push by Golden was against the almost unanimous recommendation of the NYC Board of Elections. Golden then participated in the coup by a hand full of GOP City Councilmen to replace most of the GOP Commissioners on the NYC BOE. As a result, Simon Shamoun, who was supported by Golden’s “Republicans for Change” was named as the Brooklyn GOP Commissioner on the NYC BOE. Since that time, there have been a series of rump meetings at the various offices and facilities of the BOE, at which Brooklyn Republican employees have been harangued that there has been a regime change and that certain Golden designees were representatives of that change and now ran the show for Brooklyn Republicans at the Board. Also since the Republican regime change at the BOE there have been a series of scandalous blips into the city-wide press such as: the Manhattan derelict property scandal involving the Brooklyn BOE’s Chief Clerk, Republican District Leader and “Republican for Change” member Diane Rudiano; the shredding of a key volume of the Eaton-side petitions for Republican County Committee in 2013 involving both Simon Shamoun and Diane Rudiano; and now the Daily News report about the clearly corrupted instruction session conducted by Mr. Lallave.
As the pieces fall into the puzzle, we get to see a clearer picture of what Golden & Co., a/k/a “Republicans for Change” are up to — just at the BOE.
More interesting things are coming soon about over $35,000 in Golden’s campaign finances....
Let’s see what happens next.
Golden's Republcians for Change committed a criminal act at the Board of Elections against Hayon.
ReplyDeleteWhat was this "criminal act" and by whom was it committed ?
DeleteThe shredded petitions were no where near Hayon's council district.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that's the "criminal act" that's being referred to by "Anonymous August 12, 2013 at 6:23 PM".
DeleteMore likely, it has something to do with the changed "page two" on the BOE notice letter, which was put into evidence during Hayon's validation case.
That would never happen in a BOE controlled by Golden and his cronies. Why I heard Clorinda sayin she was the new sherrif in town and that her side now ran things. What could go wrong?
DeleteHenry is a good guy Gale. He's a dedicated Republican and simply believes that it's time for new leadership in the county. As for the events described, I think you just have to know Henry and his sense of humor to understand what was going on there. It's all totally benign, just classic Henry.
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke Anonymous....I know Henry too. He was re-districted out of his District, and as par for the course with the Golden Team, he was promised to be Vice Chair for Latin Affairs if he jumped ship - a Quid Pro Quo - so to speak. I also hear he was told some inaccurate statements by the new "sherrif in town".
ReplyDeletepoor poor Henry. He let trainers CHEAT in front of a REPORTER (who I'm sure let poor, poor Henry know s/he was there. as far as beliefs, he's a two-faced backstabber who says one thing and does another. which makes him fit in well with the rest of them. All self-interested all liars. it will be fun to watch them all turn on each other when the goings get tough.
ReplyDeleteBACKFILL:
Delete"SMALL POTATOES" AND "THE HOLOCAUST"
I have no problem with Henry Lallave, I hardly even know him. However, as the comments above indicate, somebody does. Some of what they had to say is a little over the top. NOT TO BE OUTDONE, let me take a crack at saying something "Over the top."
The story that appeared in the Daily News was very much about the small potatoes kind of corruption that seems common at the BOE; and it's this "death of a thousand cuts" kind breakdown at "The Board" that has rendered it almost completely dysfunctional. But equally important, as everybody should know, even stealing small potatoes is theft; therefore even "small potatoes corruption" is corrupting and fosters larger scale corruption. The Henry Lallave part of the article gave every indication that it was in no way exceptional, either for the Board of Elections as a whole, or the part of the BOE that is the Republicans' sinecure.
Although I risk some credibility in doing so, I wish to make a comparison between the "farcical" Republicans toiling at the post-millennial NYC BOE and the tragically entwined Nazi administrators who administered the 1940's "Holocaust." In her quite controversial 1960s book, "Eichmann in Jerusalem," Hannah Arendt propounded her vision that there was a "banality of evil" as a cultural foundation upon which Nazism was erected and its policies were willingly carried out. Her thesis is that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and their historical situation, and therefore participated with the view that their individual actions were normal (the exact opposite posture of Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Deitrich Bonhoeffer and countless others)
It's particularly worth comparing some of Ms. Arendt's descriptions of the final state of subject of her title, Adolf Eichmann, with what seems to be going on inside the hearts, minds and souls of some Republicans at the BOE, and many of the others in the GOP, as well. Arendt claims " that [Eichmann] had consoled himself with the thoughts that he no longer 'was master of his own deeds,' that he was unable 'to change anything' ..."; also that Eichmann was a "joiner" his entire life, that he constantly joined organizations in order to define himself, and had difficulties thinking for himself without doing so. According to Arendt, this resulted in Eichmann's willing participation in the "Final Solution" under the following circumstances: Eichmann's role at the Wannsee Conference was peripheral; but when he witnessed the rank-and-file of the German civil service heartily endorse the Nazi hierarchy's program for the final solution of the "Jewish Question in Europe" he willingly went along because his moral responsibility was relaxed (This was also secondary to his seeing members of "respectable society" endorsing mass murder and enthusiastically participating in the planning of the "Final Solution"). In other words, it was all okay because it was being encouraged by his superiors (his betters) and it was willing being carried out by his fellow civil servants (his equals).
They say history repeats -- first, as tragedy; then, as farce. Lallave and his colleagues, who have both BOE and GOP positions are the farcical re-enactors of roles similar to the German civil servants who enabled the Holocaust to work. Of course, similar to the corruption described above, the "banal evil" of the Republicans at the Board of Elections is of the small potatoes variety -- russet fingerlings, I think.
A friend just returned from her training and called me and told me the test was a little harder than she thought it would be.
ReplyDeleteShe remembered some of the questions.
1)Your running late to the voting site, what do you do
a)Call or text the Supervisor
b)Take car service and get a receipt
c)Go back home and see if they miss you.
2)You notice a spill on the floor next to one of the machines.
a)Call or text the supervisor and ask what you should do
b)Make believe you don't see it.
c)Wipe it up.
3)A man comes to the site and lives in Queens what do you do.
Essay question. Answer should be around 25 words.
4)An old lady falls down on a piece of paper what should you do
a)Call or text the supervisor and ask what should you do
b)Make believe you don't see anything, someone else will help
c)Call 911 and ask for assistance.
5)A voter turns in a wallet with money what do you do
a)Call or text the supervisor and ask what do you do
b)Turn it over to the police that guard the site
c)Keep the money and split it with your supervisor
My friend aced the test and she was happy