“In a week where Trump said he “won” the the affordability issue in a Georgia speech, the irony is not lost when Ray declares retirees won the MA fight, and that all union leaders support our struggle. The City hasn’t discontinued the court cases, and Union boss Garrido hasn’t changed his stance to seek retribution, à la Trump, on City Council members who support legislation to protect retirees. Ray’s fealty and talking points are worthy of Karoline Leavitt’s stagecraft.”

“If there is no labor leader that supports putting retirees into medicare advantage, as ray markey ridiculously claims, he should explain why michael mulgrew of the uft uses uft cope money to have albany lobbied to stop any state bill that would protect retirees from being forced into medicare advantage. and mamdani has already reneged on campaign positions like mayoral control of the nyc school system. that happened before he even was sworn into office. and mayor mamdani just did a 180 on a campaign promise to expand rental assistance. so, while he looks to cut costs and is willing to renege on a campaign promise to do so, why should we believe he won’t change his view on medicare advantage? if he really was against medicare advantage, and if any of those leaders ray markey claims aren’t for medicare advantage really were against medicare advantage, he and they would work towards enshrining into law protection so retirees never could be forced into medicare advantage in the future by someone who suddenly changes his or her mind, or supposed commitment. so saying “we won” seems ridiculous and just a way to avoid taking positive action. you can say you are the queen of England, but that doesn’t actually make you the queen of England.”

“Joe, thank you as always for highlighting the struggles of labor. The bad actors, and well, just the actors. I want to live in the world that Ray lives in because he thinks retirees “won” when that is not entirely so. There was a saying by the great labor historian Josh Freeman when discussing DC37’s Victor Gotbaum challenging Jerry Wurf in an election, the union in which Ray hails from. Josh said, “Loyalty, rather than competency, increasingly became valued within the council, contributing to a changed institutional culture that later allowed corruption to spread.” And that my friends reigns true today. It was a corrupt labor that used the HISF to pay teacher raises in 2014 and leveraged the ENTIRE city health program allowing all of those missteps to partially fund the UFT contract. In 2018, in a deal DC37 made with the UFT, it was their turn and they moved us into Medicare Advantage. The UFT walked back its support of MA, but DC37 never did. Henry Garrido blames Mayor Adams for not moving forward. He would do it again and so would the MLC Board.

In a call I had a few months ago, Greg Floyd, the head of Teamsters Local 237 said I should never testified against because it was great! And I do not know how great it would have been because I killed it and never had a chance to be in it. I asked him if he read the contract, and that is when he got argumentative. He didn’t read it. None of them did. It was over 10,000 pages. We read it.

Gloria Middleton still talks about how great MA is. Her retirees are disgusted with her too.

The City CAN still force us into MA, as our case is not settled, and let me remind you, the MLC imposed copays on Medicare retirees to once again fund agreements they made, putting our members in an affordability crisis.

Maybe Ray should stand in solidarity with the fight being waged with the retirees, rather than standing in loyalty to a mayor who has not yet shown he stands with you. Promises are one thing, ideology too. But a commitment, that is rare these days.”

“Mayor Mamdani ran on a platform to provide free childcare which he seems to have accomplished in less than two weeks. He proposed freezing the rent on rent stabilized apartments. This also seems likely to happen in the next few months. He called for free buses. We shall see if he can accomplish this or some variation of it. I think he will.

To help pay for it he called for taxing the rich. In his budget presentation he once again called for taxing the rich. Seems reasonable when so few are making so much. It was recently reported that Bezos is making $71,000,000 a week. His co- billionaires and millionaires Trump, Musk, Bloomberg and others did exceedingly well when Trump got his big beautiful bill passed. If you want to stop making working families pay for the budget deficit support the Mayor’s call for taxing the rich.

Finally there is not a single labor leader or politician that supports putting retires into a Medicare Advantage Plan. We won.”

“I also like Billy Bragg’s song, “City of Heroes”, another tribute to the people of Minneapolis who refused to back down!”

“I also work at mount Sinai. I know for a fact these nurses are grossly underpaid with the new contract. If management and general public thinks nurses can easily be replaced by ai they can think again when they or their loved ones suffer a stroke, heart attack, cancer or another serious illness and need empathetic human care. This is not how we treat the healthcare heroes of covid19.”

“It’s politically depressing that Mayor Mamdani has chosen to align with Gov. Hochul against Lt. Gov. Delgado. He should be ashamed of himself.

Hochul’s record includes opposing legislation to repeal the Stock Transfer Tax Rebate (STTR) which leading economists and tax experts now say would recoup no less than $40 to $75 billion in extra revenues annually to address the most crucial needs of 20 million New Yorkers. Ending the STTR alone would substantially address the homeless crisis and put the biggest dent in economic poverty effecting millions of New Yorkers for decades to come.

Hochul also opposes legislation to pass the New York Health Act which would provide quality health coverage for all New Yorkers. This aligns with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ efforts to provide single payer health care coverage for all Americans.

According to Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman, Hochul turned her back on 15,000 striking New York nurses after raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars from hospital CEOs and PACs. “She waived nursing license requirements to bring in out-of-state replacements instead of standing with frontline nurses fighting for safe staffing and patient care.”

Hochul chooses a running mate, Adrienne Adams, who for years as City Council speaker prevented justice for home care workers over the issue of grand theft of millions of dollars of their wages, and stymied passage of legislation to prevent Council Member Chris Marte’s “No More 24” bill which this article explains “has never seen the light of day despite widespread support because former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams consistently opposed it and kept it suppressed.”

Compare Hochul’s and Adams’ record with that of Delgado. He fully supports legislation aimed at ending the STTR and thus restoring the miniscule one-tenth of 1% stock sales tax to advance the wellbeing of all New Yorkers. Likewise he supports passage of the New York Health Act to provide guaranteed quality health care.

He has joined picket lines and made strong statements in support of striking nurses.

An AI search states, “In 2025, New York Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado emerged as a vocal supporter of home health care workers, specifically challenging the Hochul administration over payroll issues within the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP). Delgado has actively supported the labor rights, wages, and working conditions of these workers, often framing it as a contrast to Governor Kathy Hochul’s policies.”