There’s no denying the power of Facebook, the social networking site started by a geeky Harvard kid looking to meet chicks and has since turned into one of the most popular sites on the internet.  Anyone looking for proof of it’s influence over mainstream media need only to refer to this past weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Betty White, which was the result of a Facebook plea.

Congressman Gregory Meeks posing by the desk where the Health Care Reform ask was signed.

Lately, politicians have been using Facebook as a way to directly connect with their constituents.   I friended Congressman Greg Meeks a month or two ago, breaking my strict rule that Facebook should be for personal frienemy stalking and Farmville (I’m friends with Brooklyn BP Marty Markowitz, but only because he helps with my farm).  It’s easy to mix business with pleasure on the site, and it’s also an easy way for politicians, who can easily be seen as out of touch, to pretend to be connected to the people who elected them.

At press time, Meeks boasts 3,064 friends on the site–a large number, until compared with neighboring Congressman (and Bill Maher darling) Anthony Weiner, who has 4,725.  Weiner, who Mike Drury described so perfectly in this week’s post, may have exactly what Meeks’ wants–not just a lot of Facebook friends, but a recognizable name and face outside of New York.

Weiner’s pictures, although significantly fewer than Meeks’, show a well-edited reflection of his place in the public eye.  His photo with President Obama is a candid shot of the two of them speaking.  Meeks has multiple photos with Obama, seeming not so much more in-the-know but more desperate to seem important.

please love me

Whether or not these photos represent the true situation down in DC is a moot point–people’s lives on the internet can sometimes overwrite reality.  And when all the people in your district have is a page on a social networking site, they’ll believe what they see.

While this week didn’t have any new scandals–damn–Greg Meeks’ involvement with financier schemer R. Allen Sanford has been brought back to the surface as allegations that the SEC ignored one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history for eight years.

It may be difficult to comprehend that a commission who’s mission is ” to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation” would miss out on such a large show, especially since numerous insiders and examinations by their own employees pointed out that the financial group was, perhaps, a cover for something else from as early as 1997.  And what about Mr. Madoff?  How’d they miss that one?  What could they have possibly been spending their time doing that they couldn’t have followed up on the complaints?

Oh.

Greg Meeks’ involvement with Sanford goes back to 2006, when the Congressman was allegedly contacted by Sanford to “retaliate” against a former Venezuelan employee of Sanford’s who was threatening to blow the whistle on the whole thing.  So, like any self-respecting Congressman would do, Greg Meeks paid a visit to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (paid, allegedly, by Sanford).  A year later, the whistle blower was indicted.  And Meeks?  He was rewarded with a trip to the Caribbean funded by the Inter-American Economic Council–a non-profit created by Sanford.

I’d wondered how Greg Meeks could be so pro-bank coming from an area that was hit so hard by corporate greed and shoddy mortgages.  But now, it’s coming more into focus.  You want to run for re-election?  You need money.  You want to get a better gig down in DC?  Cash money, yo.  And as far as the trips go–I can see Meeks’ brain working to explain it.  Everybody was doing it; why should he get in on a little fun?  The thought that it would risk his career didn’t really occur to him.  Meeks, clueless and out of touch, jumped the shark.

The first thing I noticed once I got to New Orleans was there were beads everywhere.

The second thing I noticed was something was still terribly wrong in the Crescent City.

We were staying in the French Quarter, a pretty hotel with a pool a few blocks from Bourbon Street. We rode bikes to a big park one day and saw some signs of the destruction along the way, but it was during the day. Sunlight helps even the saddest situation not seem so bad. There were tours of the Lower Ninth Ward, but I didn’t feel right about poking my head out from a bus to stare at one of the country’s biggest failures. I hate and silently mock people who ask me for directions to “Ground Zero” in Manhattan–wasn’t this the same thing?

On my vacation agenda was a tour of the Garden District, some po’boys, cold-brewed coffee, a few nights out for some brassy jazz. I did not have time to think about slimey local politicians, but New York followed me, via daily email updates about Greg Meeks’ continued involvement with duping Katrina victims out of money and shelter. And there I was, in the place where the wrong was supposedly done, with hints of all that did go wrong just peeking beyond the gilded surface

On our third night in New Orleans my friend and I decided to grab dinner away from the main drag. After some research we settled on a popular soul food restaurant that was a few blocks away. The map said to hook a right after Toulouse Street and take Basi Street past the highway until it turned into Orleans Avenue and we hit Dooky Chase’s. We got dressed and set out and it didn’t take long for us to realize things had changed.

Basin Street was dark and empty. We heard sirens off in the distance and didn’t see anybody for a few blocks. There was an abandoned old pharmacy and some boarded up corner stores and we finally saw some people gathered around a store in the middle of a block that sold candy and cigarettes. All of the houses on the street were abandoned and boarded up, with spray painted tallies and dates on the white or blue or beige clapboard.

There was one white house, the paint curling up and peeling off, with black spray paint scrawled on the front. Two cats, one chow. Two Xs. The “chow” had two Xs on it. The cat had a box. 9/26/05. Five years ago. Five years and that house still looks like that?

And all I could think about, despite what I told myself I wouldn’t, was Greg Meeks. All that missing money. No, it wasn’t millions of dollars. No, he didn’t wait five days before visiting it via helicopter. But here was a New York guy, representing areas of Queens that hurt without the hurricane, and promised them something and they never received it. What could that money have done for Basin Street?

We got to Dooky Chase’s—it was closed for the night.

“You wanna go back?” I asked my friend, and he said yes almost as soon as I asked, and we walked fast back to the French Quarter. I like to pretend I’m streetwise and tough and not scared by dark corners in strange cities but I was. I felt bad feeling better walking away from the piles of rubble and towards the bright lights and hand grenades of the French Quarter.

Halfway through our walk back a man stepped out of an abandoned house and walked by us.

“Bourbon Street,” he said, in that low, smooth, mumbly New Orleans accent I tried deciphering in the remaining few days in the city. Yes, I thought. And I’m sorry.

______________________________________________________________

-Seminal NYC journalist Gabe Pressman wrote about Meeks and New Orleans on Friday

-Some residents are saying the Aqueduct deal fell through because of “racist journalism”

-Greg Meeks had to stand in front of the class and tell them he’d been served a subpoena . Officials say he’s been complying with requests for documents and tax returns on various non-profits.

Ed Koch is the cantankerous three-term former Mayor of New York City who is now taking on another job: the unofficial president of a gathering of people–members of good government groups, public policy experts, and political experts– dedicated to government reform.

Their unofficial slogan? Throw The Bums Out.

Koch says he wants even the supposed “good guys” out because they’re “not good enough” and warns it will be long-standing incumbents who will face his wrath. And his anger is common throughout the city, state, and country, fueled by a bad economy and mounting ethics probes for elected officials.

A day after April Fools Day, the Daily News published a two-page article on the recent federal probe of not one, not two, not three, but four Queens politicians (one retired)–State Senator Malcolm Smith, Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, former Congressman Reverend Floyd Flake, and Congressman Greg Meeks.

The federal investigation varies per politician, but the themes that run throughout are common: lined pockets and special favors for family and friends in the form of suspicious non-profits and real estate deals, some involving a charter school.

The three politicians currently serving the people of Queens have held their seats for years. Helen Marshall, for example, crushed her competition in the last election for borough president by large, double-digit margin. Meeks and Smith also have won their last elections by big digits even though, as I’ve pointed out before, their constituents

Ed Koch–a man who clearly loves and respects justice as he worked as a judge on People’s Court–is angry. The newspapers are angry. Even other politicians are angry.

But the people? They ultimately decide who stays and who goes. Are they angry enough?

NOTE: My sister worked for a few years as an editor at The Wave, the local newspaper serving the communities in Rockaway. Over dinner one night while we both visited our parents, she reminded me of a column Congressman Meeks would sometimes put in the paper, Meeks Speaks, where he would offer a PR-type piece on all the good he’s doing for the people reading the paper.

“It was a nightmare to edit,” she told me. “Whoever was writing it didn’t understand the English language.” It had been a while since I’d seen the column, and I figured he was no longer writing his commentary.

But last week’s edition of The Wave featured a return to Meeks Speaks with the title “Health Care Reform: Help Is On The Way”, which was his long-winded way of saying he voted yes for the Health Care Reform Act. He didn’t mention any of his scandals. Welcome back!

Greg Meeks has been in the hot seat recently because of his suspicious Hurricane Katrina charity.

But now, he wants us to feel bad for him because, despite a new house that rivals the Growing Up Gotti homestead and dinners at oyster bars and an expensive wardrobe (who can forget that Coogi sweater?!), Mr. Meeks is saying he’s actually sort of poor.  Maybe he isn’t as out of touch as originally thought.

The New York Times ran a story this week highlighting the Queens congressman’s financial woes.  Despite making $174,000 a year, Meeks says he barely has a few thousand dollars in the bank.  Why?  He put his two daughters through college, debt-free, and also just had a brand new house built in St. Albans, after deciding his old house in Far Rockaway (which he inherited from his parents) wasn’t big enough.  He sold that house and combined it with a JP Morgan mortgage to develop land he already owned on mainland Queens.

The home was built in 2006 by Richard Dennis, who also was a hefty campaign contributor.  Many local appraisers are saying the $830,000 price tag was low for the area and size of the house (one local neighbor said he thought it was going to be four houses during construction).

The Times contaced an independent appraiser, Kevin Donegan, who said, “At $830,000, anyway you slice it, it was substantially below market.  He appears to have gotten a very, very good deal.”

Another good deal?  The $1,000-a-month Lexus he drives (leased by the Government), the dinners at Docks Seafood (lobster roll appetizer: $24; organic Scottish Salmon: $26), and his stays at the Ritz-Carlton while on business in Miami.  Meeks defends his high-rolling status by saying he needs to play the game in order to make it in Washington.  With eyes clearly on a higher seat than the one he’s in now, his expensive fund raisers make sense.  He couldn’t even began to raise the amount of money he has by looking for it in his district (OpenSecrets reports he raised close to $500,000 in 2009-2010, with close to $128,000 now on hand).

Like so many representatives, he represents a weird mix–living like a King while representing some of the most struggling areas of Queens.  The argument can always be made that in order to get the funds to help your area, you have to think beyond the people living there.  But with a house like the one he’s living in now, it begs the question for those he works for: Representative Greg Meeks is a lot better off since we’ve elected him, but are we?

ALSO: A recent article in the Daily News points to a similarly-shady real estate deal with friend of Meeks State Senator Malcolm Smith.

Outside of Sylvia’s Restaurant two weeks ago, Congressman Greg Meeks promised he’d soon discuss the scandal surrounding his involvement in the Queens charity that allegedly stole $31,000 of tax-payer money.

“Watch me on NY1 on Monday,” he told me and other reporters who maybe wondered why he was so eager to do so. Since the news broke, he’d hardly spoken about his problems. So I tuned in.

Meeks wasn’t a guest that day on “Inside City Hall”, the obvious choice of shows to present his side of the story. Instead, the political talk show had City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Department of Education head Joel Klein.

He wasn’t on NY Tonight, the news recap show at 8. There was no Greg from Far Rockaway calling or emailing in to “The Call” (that night’s topic: Governor Paterson). He wasn’t talking about Broadway shows on the theater show, either, or the 11 o’clock news.

Congressman Greg Meeks stood up every eager and curious (and Time Warner Cable-subscribing) politico by canceling his appearance on “Inside City Hall”, citing an unexpected “family conflict.” He rescheduled an appearance for March 15th, but the surprise cancellation perhaps says a lot more than if he had actually appeared on the channel.

It was easy for Meeks to deflect attention while the Governor was under such scrutiny. But as the media begins to slowly move away from Paterson’s problems–it turns out his evidence tampering case is flawed, and he’s pretty firm about not resigning–they will begin to move on another scandal. And Meeks’ case has all the makings of the perfect news headline: the suspicious missing money from a charity meant for poor kids and Hurricane Katrina sufferers. And not just any money–YOUR tax dollars!

While the story’s made the front page before, it never lasted more than a day. But now that Paterson’s back to just being an (allegedly) incompetent Governor, and as long as Eric Massa goes into hiding and stops talking about his top-bunk shenanigans, reporters will just have to move on to the next one. That next one looks to be Congressman Greg Meeks.

Congressman Greg Meeks agreed to a brief interview this week with Howie Schwach, editor of Rockaway’s local newspaper, The Wave.  The interview, which is available until next week only in print, has Meeks denying every allegation stacked against him.

“I feel bad for the charities involved,” he said, repeating many times how devoted he is to the community he represents.  “We have to focus on more important things, like jobs.”

But in bigger news, Meeks attended Reverend Al Sharpton’s second emergency summit on Governor David Paterson at Sylvias, and so did I.  As soon as I heard over the AP wires that the meeting was happening, I grabbed my flip and set out uptown.  I wanted to find a way to talk to Congressman Meeks, and I’d never been to the iconic Harlem restaurant.  Even if I was shut out I could get some banana pudding out of it.

What I found uptown was a media frenzy over what essentially amounted to nothing: a consensus, sort of, by Black leadership and other politicians that Paterson should remain as Governor.  They offered their support and said they wanted to clear the way for “due process” with allegations against the Governor, which now include “soliciting an unlawful gift” in the form of five tickets to a World Series game at Yankee Stadium.  The show of support in the community where he was raised, by some of his oldest friends, like former Mayor David Dinkins, was a surprise to many who thought Paterson would be out by Friday.

But unlike the rest of the reporters waiting with me, my focus was on the man standing behind Al Sharpton at their table in the back room of the restaurant, smiling ear to ear–Congressman Greg Meeks.   After the meeting broke hoards of reporters surrounded Reverend Sharpton and Dinkins, around the corner to 126th Street where Dinkins parked his white Dodge Charger.  Yes, Sharpton and 50 cameras and microphones all had the decency to escort him to his car, although neither would answer questions or say a word.  On the walk back to Sylvias I managed to ask Sharpton on camera about the other allegations of the people in the room–notably Greg Meeks.  Sharpton looked at me and said, “Huh?”

By the time Greg Meeks came out it was close to midnight and I’d almost gone home (the security guard at the front of the restaurant told me he’d “been gone!”).  But he sauntered out and spoke to reporters, throwing his support behind the beleaguered Governor and echoing the due process statements made by Sharpton.  He added that he has three daughters of his own, and would never support violence against women, or anybody; but the Governor was owed his own investigation before people started forcing him out.

And before he dipped into his black town car, I managed to ask him the question I came up and waited hours to ask :

At least the banana pudding was good.

Greg Meeks attended Al Sharpton’s emergency Paterson summit at Sylvia’s in Harlem yesterday, along with many Black and Latino Democratic leaders and other elected officials.  The event was closed to the press, but Liz Benjamin of the Daily News reports that many sources inside the room say they are in favor of the Governor ending his short campaign for election, but do not feel he should resign.

“(T)he collective wants to put the focus back on policy not politics, including the areas of budget protection, job creation, education reform, health care, and entrepreneurial services,” Sharpton said, adding that the group would be seeking a meeting with both Paterson and “whoever announces that they will run for governor.”

The photo released from the event shows familiar faces of New York City politics looking terrified.  Al Sharpton is flanked by Meeks and Senator Malcolm Smith.  Rep. Charled Rangel is seated at the end, a few days after the House Ways and Means Committee said he broke ethics rules by taking two Caribbean trips paid for by private corporations.

It may not be the best company for Sharpton to be in, but these are his political allies.  Meeks’ missing money from his charity was on the cover of the New York Post today, time telling the story of the Rosedale Jets football team in Rosedale, Queens, who applied for money through the nonprofit but were told their application was “never received.”  First there were Hurricane Katrina victims shafter; now there are kiddie football players who can’t afford the proper equipment, all because Meeks allegedly spent tens of thousands of dollars on office supplies for an office the organization doesn’t have.

The New York Times has an interesting article on the legacy of Harlem politicians now coming to a close with Paterson’s decision.  It seemed like happier times then–not as much scandal.  Meeks has been an ally of David Paterson  for years, both coming out of the same Harlem litany of politicians.  While Paterson inherited his from his father, Basil (he served as State Senator in the same District as his dad), Meeks came into politics on his own.  He didn’t come from a political family, but he was welcomed into the one established in Harlem and southern Queens.

NOTE:  When I first saw the photograph from the summit, what struck me was Greg Meeks’s outfit.  It’s rare to see a politician in something other than a suit, but it’s hysterical to see that politician in a Coogi sweater. I spent too much time thinking about other famous Coogi fans, and have compiled a link to my favorites:

The Patriarchal Coogi

“I stay Coogi down to the socks”

The Legendary College Basketball Coach Coogi (middle)

Before he got famous for swindling his friends and family and investors out of billions of dollars–creating the biggest Ponzi scheme in history–Bernie Madoff wasn’t even the most famous alum of Far Rockaway High School.

That distinction maybe went to Dr. Jonas Salk, who helped discover the polio vaccine; or basketball star and commentator Nancy Liebermann; or the extremely talented rapper MC Serch, of 3rd Bass.

Like so many of the New York City’s brightest students in the 1950s, Madoff commuted by bus and train from his home in Laurelton, Queens to go to the school by the beach, in residential Far Rockaway.  He climbed the wide marble staircase with his future wife, Ruth, and countless future investors who he would keep as friends as he created Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in 1960.

Madoff represents a different time for an area of Queens that has suffered in the past few decades from high crime and unemployment.  The main shopping district, Mott Avenue, still shows the old signs of prosperity, in the architecture of the abandoned buildings and the art-deco style of the Far Rockaway Shopping Center sign, which hasn’t been painted in years.  And while the big limestone building that was home to Far Rockaway High School since the turn of the 20th century is still around, the inside is different.  The high school will be phased out in June, when it graduates it’s last class.  The Department of Education closed it down citing low performance.

Far Rockaway and other areas of south Queens have been suffering for years.  But when Hurricane Katrina struck, people still managed to open up their wallets for a worthy cause.  Greg Meeks’ and Malcolm Smith’s charity, New Direction Local Development Corporation, had been around since 2001, designed to help residents in their district find jobs.   They wanted to send money down to NOLA, and asked locals to help.  Many did.  They’re still advertising the good work they did for the residents of New Orleans even after reports show the money never even got there.  Victims on both sides–those who gave, and those who thought they were going to get–are starting to feel burned.

Meeks and Madoff might not have ever met each other.  Their ties to Queens are decades apart.  But with more and more allegations surfacing–of slush funds, of trips paid for by another Ponzi schemer, of empty promises and investments going nowhere–the two seem more and more alike.  Far Rockaway’s a different place than it was in the 1950s, but some things never change.