New Kings Democrats Not Accountable to Brooklyn Communities
Recently, I saw Democrats in Brooklyn announced a meeting and called on the public to come and be represented. It sounded promising until I saw who was running it, The New Kings Democrats. The group claims to be an accountable Democratic Club, but their rush to endorse candidates without fact-checking tells us they are not.
The New Kings Democrats endorsed Khader El-Yateem in Bay Ridge. I kept wondering why they would pick him. Then I came across the questionnaire Khader El-Yateem filled out for the New Kings Democrats.
The questionnaire was like a job application and El-Yateem put down some answers that aren’t true. If the New Kings Democrats had taken five minutes to fact-check the information, they may not have endorsed him.
Question #18 Khader El-Yateem wrote that he was endorsed by Assemblywoman Pam Harris. El-Yateem was not endorsed by Pam Harris. El-Yateem announced he was, yet Harris told the media she didn’t endorse anyone and planned to endorse Nancy Tong because she was the only female. Nancy Tong has Harris’ endorsement on her page. A call to Pamela Harris’ office could have confirmed this information.
The Immigrant Action Fund endorsed Khader El-Yateem. This is true. Yet, the Immigrant Action Fund did not interview,Nancy Tong or any of the other candidates in C43 before they endorsed El-Yateem. WHY? Because the head of the Muslim Democratic Club of New York also works at the Immigrant Action Fund. (Real democratic process). Again, this was easy to check as another candidate complained about this endorsement – see article. Khader El-Yateem accepted this endorsement, even though he knew that it was due to cronyism and the other candidates had not been interviewed.
Question #6 Khader El-Yateem boasted about establishing a drug rehabilitation Center in Bay Ridge. The head of the substance abuse center said she didn’t receive the money from El-Yateem. Khader El-Yateem hasn’t presented cancelled checks, but responded in the article: here
Khader El-Yateem stated that he established the Bay Ridge Unity Task Force. The newspapers say that Former District Attorney, Charles Hynes established the group. El-Yateem was one of the first members, so he would be a founding member. The Bay Ridge Unity Task Force met once a year (they didn’t meet this year). The New Kings Democrats needed to do their homework on this one because this was a group that met once a year for breakfast. When a hate crime arose this Winter, the Unity Task Force didn’t do anything. You can’t combat hate crimes in a community by eating breakfast once a year. While the Unity Task Force sounds amazing on paper, The New Kings would have found out the truth if they did a search online.
While the New Kings Democrats claim to be a truly progressive and transparent Democratic group, their endorsement without fact-checking proves they aren’t accountable to communities. It’s apparent that the New King Democrats are pushing their agenda in Brooklyn. They don’t seem to care if they present qualified candidates, as long as the candidate promises to vote for the items on their agenda. If the New Kings Democrats actually did some fact-checking, they would have shown they care about the communities they are endorsing candidates for. And if the answers to those questions didn’t matter, why did they ask them?
Hugs,
marlene
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