14 NOVEMBER 17 - NOVEMBER 23, 2017 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP
GUN REGULATION IS
URGENTLY NEEDED
Congratulations to our new City
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Councilmember Justin Brannan!
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He fought an honorable
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campaign and won on the strength
of his message as well as his track record
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of hard work in the community.
Expect great things for the district.
In Texas, 27 innocents were slaughtered
by a deranged mental patient
who thanks to the ineffective laws
and haphazard quilt of gun regulations
was able to purchase a powerful
semi-automatic assault rifle and
murder the congregants of the First
Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs.
Criminal. Mental patient. Fugitive.
Domestic violence perpetrator. Air
Force washout. None of these facts
stopped the craven killer from purchasing
his weapon legally.
Air Force officials are working on
finding out how the critical and relevant
information about the shooter
failed to be transmitted to the database
maintained by the FBI for background
checks for gun purchasers.
Will we ever realize that the issue of
gun regulation is a national and vital
one for the future security of our
nation? We must not be distracted or
deterred.
The idea that “thoughts and prayers”
will somehow be a satisfactory answer
to the problem of mass shootings is
ridiculous. Prayer and talk are ineffective
without decisive action.
Some gun rights activists are saying
that we should be happy there was
an armed citizen nearby who helped
prevent more innocent people from
being killed. Is that supposed to make
right what our national inaction has
allowed to happen over and over
again?
They would discourage any dialogue
on gun regulations or the
need for federal Second Amendment
legislation out of sensitivity for the
incident. Are they really that sensitive?
The real reason is that inaction
is the success formula for the NRA,
gun manufacturers and gun rights
activists.
Ten of the deadliest mass shootings
in modern American have occurred
during the past five years. We are
COMMON SENSE
BY JERRY KASSAR
A compromise tax reform plan
would be a great win for the Congress
and the American people.
WE THE
PEOPLE
BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP • JUNE 5 - JUNE 11, 2014
WE THE
PEOPLE
BY BRIAN KERIN
WE THE PEOPLE
BY BRIAN KERIN
reaping a deadly harvest from the
years the NRA has been allowed to
set the agenda for gun regulation in
America. If your elected representative
cannot make promise to refuse
NRA money in any form and pledge
to work on making national gun regulation
a reality, then you need to give
your vote to someone who will.
In Texas, carrying a gun has become
a broad and common Second
Amendment right. Texans can legally
carry concealed or open almost anywhere
in the state except in schools,
courtrooms and airports. Texas has
also had a disproportionate number
of mass shootings over the years.
The Sheriff of Polk County,
BY BRIAN KIERAN
Florida used the tragedy to encourage
more people to carry weapons.
He said, “The only thing that stops
a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy
with a gun."
No. Sheriff, you may get help from
an armed citizen but stopping the bad
guy is your job. If we regularly and
successfully keep weapons out of
the hands of most criminals and all
mentally ill persons, then we won’t
have to become real life Rambos. This
thinking has to change.
It is true that armed citizens can
successfully defend themselves or
others when a murderer with a gun
attacks but we have trained professionals
with weapons who do the job
better.
Armed citizens can defend our
borders too but we have trained professionals
for that job as well. It is time
to take the power and the decision
making away from the NRA.
Hospital situation
need of triage
College Hospital seems to be destined
Victory Memorial Hospital, Peninsula
Vincent’s Hospital.
proposed plans are short on service to
on dollars in the pockets of developers.
believe that, as the city grows,
increases
prospers,
fewer
health
Do we
chain
bank on
hospitals?
the company that wins the proposal
be obligated to provide a large
facility to compensate for the
service hospital it will replace.
Congressmember Hakeem Jefferies
opportunity to complain that the NYPD
low-level marijuana arrests in
hinted that this may be an indication
Blasio is really not serious about
following through on his campaign
promises to assure the NYPD scrupulously honors
individual citizens civil rights.
He stated that the “new administration promised
change but instead we get more of the same.”
That is not true. The number of arrests for low-level
marijuana possession
has dropped and NYPD
policy is not to force a
suspect to display small
amounts of pot in order
to make an arrest.
Governor Cuomo has
proposed decriminalizing
possession of 15
grams or less of pot whether hidden or in plain view,
which would take this controversy and its attendant
political baggage off the table. It would be nice to let
police offi cers perform their duties instead of being
pawns in a political chess game.
Mayor de Blasio has fulfi lled an incredible amount
of his promises in a very short time. He has imposed
the extra protection of an inspector general for the
NYPD and signed off on the laws passed by the City
Council which may leave police offi cers subject to
lawsuits for negligent performance of their duties.
He has provided universal pre K without a tax
increase. He is settling the outstanding municipal
worker contracts neglected by Mike Bloomberg for
the next mayor to handle. He is championing Vision
Zero to reduce traffi c fatalities to zero. It is unfair
to question his commitment to his ideals or to the
fulfi llment of his promises.
The City Council will pass 11 laws and four resolutions
to create a Vision Zero environment for our
streets. The new laws provide a lower speed limit for
city streets and enhanced penalties for reckless drivers.
The state legislature must approve the changes.
We also need the state legislature to provide a
reasonable number of speed cameras to enforce the
new laws. Let us hope that our legislators will work
together as a group to see that these changes and
improvements are made quickly.
Brian Kieran is an attorney who works as a Principal
Law Clerk in the Supreme Court of the State of New
York in Kings County and is a Democrat.
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Brian Kieran is a community activist who works
Double decked headline
fit alloted space
“Mayor de Blasio has ful lled an incredible
Mayor amount Bloomberg of his promises continues in a very to push short
a
fantasy time.
that, if he had more power,
everything would be okay. When so
much is at stake, it is not the time to
make political statements or play
games”.
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feugiat. Fusce laoreet vehicula laoreet. Nam
id accumsan magna. Vivamus a felis at lacus
tincidunt sodales quis sed nisl. Donec vitae dui
purus. Quisque eu nisi eros, et venenatis eros.
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orci, eu ultrices tellus.
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lorem, a dictum
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convallis quis adipiscing
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non neque. Vivamus eget vulputate mauris.
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vitae, molestie a lectus. Donec molestie, ligula
consequat venenatis lobortis, libero eros porttitor
diam, ac malesuada purus ligula nec mauris.
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fringilla a blandit et, pellentesque sit amet risus.
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suscipit nibh lacinia. Suspendisse potenti. Proin
sed interdum justo. Sed sollicitudin tristique
suscipit. Sed mattis, odio a imperdiet tempus,
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sem rutrum bibendum. Integer malesuada
elit commodo vel vehicula quam ultrices. Sed at
massa sed lorem facilisis ultrices.
Brian Kieran is a community activist who works
for the State of New York and is a Democrat.
Double decked headline
fit alloted space
“Mayor Bloomberg continues to push a
fantasy that, if he had more power,
everything would be okay. When so
much is at stake, it is not the time to
make political statements or play
games”.
us never forget
BY BRIAN KIERAN
The idea that “thoughts and
prayers” will somehow be a satisfactory
answer to the problem
of mass shootings is ridiculous.
TAX TIME
I sure hope the Republican controlled
House and Senate can
work out their differences on the
Tax Reform bill. There are many good
things in both bills such as a large tax
rate decrease, a reduction in the number
of brackets and a large increase in
the standard deduction.
The AMT — which is often criticized
since it no longer does what
it was planned to do — is gone. The
House version also allows for capped
property tax and mortgage interest
deductions — all good stuff.
To get it passed, however, the state
and local personal income tax deduction
will need to be addressed. There
simply will not be enough votes if the
Congressional delegations in states
affected by this elimination are not
part of a compromise.
I would not expect a dollar-for-dollar
deduction to remain but a capped
or tiered deduction would make
sense. Together with a rate decrease,
fewer brackets, keeping a version of
the mortgage and real property tax
deduction and the elimination of the
AMT, which currently reaches into the
higher earning middle class, I believe
we would have a great plan that would
save working class New Yorkers a
good bit in taxes each year.
It is also worth noting that filings
would be far easier to do. Maybe there
would even be less need to hire a tax
preparer.
In the current plans, charitable deductions
— which are already capped
— are entirely eliminated. I doubt this
could stand in as much as it would
have a chilling effect on religious
institutions and not-for-profits.
The other part of the plan is adjustments
in the corporate tax structure
with emphasis on investment dollars.
This is long overdue.
The federal government cannot
continue to threaten companies
like Pfizer which look to move their
headquarters overseas in order to
save billions of dollars. It is obvious
a problem exists and the solution is
equally obvious.
Trump is attempting to provide that
solution. And in doing so he will take
the pressure off companies looking
to relocate headquarters outside our
borders and also encourage investment
within the United States that will
create jobs and stimulate further our
economy.
The U.S. Congress needs a win. A
compromise tax reform plan would
be a great win for the Congress and
the American people.
* * *
Happy Birthday (November 11) to
Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis.
Nicole worked very hard in her candidacy
for New York City mayor. And
although the election did not work out,
in many parts of the city she clearly
won.
In our local Council district, she
received better than 55 percent of the
vote to the mayor’s 36 percent. She
won a number of other Council districts
in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten
Island by similar or larger margins.
One of those is the district in which
Republican Bob Holden is expected
to hold onto a small lead and defeat
Elizabeth Crowley.
All told, Nicole won 13 Assembly
Districts and came within a few points
in four others. That is a lot of territory
and a lot of votes. And in the case of
the Conservative Party, she received
the most votes of any candidate since
1981.
She earned something like 71 percent
of the vote on Staten Island and
she lost only a handful of election
districts in the entire two-borough
11th Congressional District. I would
say that she has an exceptionally
bright future. She is the Republican
to watch.