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A BRITISHER’S VIEW: ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ has DeB-n-bish cooking cronyism in a petri dish

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See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.

By Shavana Abruzzo

Brooklyn Daily

Who knew that Mayor DeBlasio’s “A Tale of Two Cities” shtick would veer off into his personal vale of the great divide, once he became a mayor with an appetite for abusing power.

DeBlasio’s championing of the one percent over the other 99 — including handpicking a fellow multi-millionaire as Council speaker and refusing to preserve charter schools for poor and powerless kids — reared its ugly head again, with his late-night telephone call to an NYPD boss on behalf of a wealthy and politically connected pastor pal, whom cops arrested for a pair of open warrants.

Bill’s meddling spared Bishop Orlando Findlayter a night in the pokey, unlike regular Joes who would have had to bear the full brunt of the law because they are not his cronies, they did not help to drum up the black vote for him as Findlayter did, and they might fail the assorted litmus tests of his picky wife.

Hizzoner, seen the next day attending a clergy breakfast with Findlayter and that other questionable harp polisher Al Sharpton, swears up and down he was only snooping around when he contacted a deputy chief at the 67th Precinct on Feb. 10 — a call that prompted the commanding officer to spring the bishop. Mayor DeBlasio should have been as curious about why Findlayter — a purported man of the cloth — is amassing a disturbing rap sheet.

Newspaper reports paint the bishop as hardly an upstanding citizen, even at a cursory glance: He was ticketed for making a left turn without signaling. He was charged with driving without a license. He failed to show up in court after being arrested at a protest. He is reported to be a bad tenant who was dumped from the Flatbush building that housed his churches and nonprofit for not paying the rent, but still registers both facilities at the eviction and foreclosure addresses. He is allegedly an uncompassionate landlord for ignoring a woman who fell in his building and sued him. On top of that, a charter school he founded was slammed with an “F” for progress by the city, despite receiving millions of state and federal dollars.

Yet the bish is no side dish in the feast of riches, living as he does in an alleged $600,000 home on Long Island, in a gross breach of You cannot serve God and money” — Luke 16:13.

Mayor DeBlasio will be judged by the company he keeps. That is his lot. Couple that with his tilt to sway justice for his sidekicks, and Gotham is really turning into “A Tale of Two Cities” — Blas style.

https://twitter.com/#!/BritShavana

Read Shavana Abruzzo's column every Friday on BrooklynDaily.com. E-mail here at sabruzzo@cnglocal.com.

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