Saturday, May 1, 2010

New York State of Mind

Happy May Day! Rallies are being staged in Union Square and across the world today to celebrate Union Labor (and to march against Arizona's anti-illegal immigration laws). I believe this was originally a Socialist holiday.  At least that’s what I remember from grade school when I did a report on the Soviet Five Year Plan. So fly the flag of the nation of your choice and praise “spreading the wealth [as long as it isn’t yours]”! Anyway, on with New York...

Sports – Yankees are winning. Mets are winning. So what’s new with that?

Local – Mayor Bloomberg jumped into the Arizona Illegal Immigrant debate by declaring that “we love immigrants here!” And, as one more example of misinformation about the new law attacking ALL immigration, dear Mayor Bloomberg goes on point out that “we are committing national suicide" and "...don’t have doctors, and we’re not allowing people who want to come here and be doctors to come here”.  Anecdotally speaking, my doctors are from Russia, Brazil, India, and the Bronx. All highly skilled and highly trained and not one of them is originally from Manhattan. But seriously, I really don’t think Mayor Bloomberg fully understands the gravity of the situation on our southern border. One would be hard pressed to find a time our northern border patrol found a semi-truck full of undocumented Canadians starving, dehydrated, and left to die in the deserts of Messina, NY. Or an incidence where Canadian drug lords were murdering and kidnapping innocent people in Buffalo or shooting deputies who tried to stop them in Cooperstown. But, like San Francisco, we are a sanctuary city and where would we be if we didn’t have illegals here to “take those jobs that no one else would do” like mucking out Bloomberg’s stables full of thoroughbred show ponies or cleaning his many toilets.

Speaking of jobs, here’s a sight we probably haven’t seen in New York in awhile. Hundreds of people were camping out last weekend to get a chance for one of the 750 applications for 75 elevator maintenance apprenticeships with Local 3. And today the line was around the block for 200 hotel jobs. Are you listening, Mr. President???  Probably not.  He's probably rehearsing his one-liners for the White House Correspondents' Dinner tonight or accepting more campaign donations from Goldman Sachs employees.

State - Well, our November 2010 election races are heating up in New York. Though no one has come forward yet to definitely run for anything, lots of money is changing hands. We expect that in the coming weeks, the races for Senators, Governor, and other prime political spots will become more clear. As I have pointed out before, our Primary is not until early September, so we still have the whole summer to flesh this out.

BUT, it is official, Governor Patterson is now the lamest duck ever. No one will listen to a word he has to say, but at least he has Andrew Cuomo’s back. This week, former Luv Guv Eliot Spitzer criticized AG (and maybe, gubernatorial hopeful) Andrew Cuomo for being “too political” in his selection of targets for prosecution. As you may remember, Cuomo is currently investigating Gov. Patterson for various alleged criminal activities. But Patterson came to Cuomo’s defense saying…well, who really cares. Not only does no one care what Patterson has to say, but they REALLY don’t care what Spitzer has to say because well, Spitzer left us with Patterson. But, if Cuomo has his way, all of his competition will be in jail anyway.

Why, just last week, Cuomo, filed a civil suit on behalf of the State of New York against our State Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada, Jr. (D/Bronx). According to the New York Post, Cuomo accuses Espada of “stealing $14 million from the taxpayer-backed Soundview Health Center to fund a lavish lifestyle that included $20,000 in sushi delivered to his Mamaroneck home and family trips to Las Vegas, Puerto Rico and Miami." This prompted the FBI, IRS, and other three-lettered officials to swoop down in a coordinated raid on the Southview offices this week for evidence. Espada shot back accusing Cuomo of using these "falsehoods" for "political payback".  If any of this sounds vaguely familiar, Cuomo also just won a criminal conviction of our last Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.  He is currently awaiting sentencing even as I write this.

BUT, just so you don’t think that all we do here in New York is arrest and convict our political leadership, our Legislature has been hard at work. Oh, not passing a new budget or trying to figure out how to close our massive debt or anything. But they have been busy.  Just this week, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky (D/Westchester) introduced a bill to make organ donation mandatory in New York. Fortunately, he did include an “opt out” clause, but otherwise, if you don’t opt out, they can just rip those suckers out. [I haven’t read the bill, but I am just assuming that one has to be legally dead first.]  Now it makes sense why our legislators are introducing these other laws toban smoking, salt, transfats, and to implement new taxes on sugary beverages. As a friend observed, they are trying to create a herd of local, organically grown “free-range people” to use for harvesting disease-free organs.

Federal - Adam Clayton Powell, IV officially announced his candidacy for House of Representatives. He will be running against former Ways and Means Chairman Charles “why pay taxes” Rangel. Interestingly, Powell is the son of Adam Clayton Powell, III who was defeated by Congressman Rangel in the early ‘70’s. More on this as it develops.

And finally –
Just in case you were wondering what kind of people live in New York, here are two stellar examples:

- This is a quote from a young woman on an Oxycontin bender who struck and killed a recently retired doctor while the older woman mowed her lawn - "The thing that made me not feel so bad was, she was old".

- And, a homeless Guatemalan immigrant saved the life of a young woman who was being beaten early one morning last week. Both the attacker and the woman ran away but, during his intervention, the 31 year old homeless hero Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was stabbed and left bleeding on the street. For an hour, Mr. Tale-Yax laid on the ground bleeding as at least seven people who were caught on a surveillance camera walked passed him and did absolutely nothing to help him. By the time an ambulance arrived, it was too late and the poor man had bled out. The police still have not found the woman who he tried to save.

Yes, we love our immigrants in New York, don’t we, Mayor Bloomberg?

13 comments:

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, None of this makes me want to visit New York. They once had something similar in DC, where a guy died in an illegally parked car and they caught two different metermaids writing him tickets all day.

Bloomberg is a typical no-nothing-criticize-everything politicians on the left. Anything anyone does that isn't 100% "progressive" is evil. I'm surprised he didn't mention Hitler, that usually comes next.

Free-range people. Hmm. Maybe they have found a way to close their budget deficit?

Finally, I like Cuomo's style. . . it's very Stalinesque. Lock up or kill all your opponents and elections become a snap!

BevfromNYC said...

Uh-oh, I'm supposed to make you want to come to NY! I'll work on that.

I think Cuomo is being "smart" by arresting all of his political opponents before he declares his candidacy. That way he has credible deniability. If this is what he does to his own party members, imagine what he will do to the Republican running against him? Rick Lazio may run against him, but watch out. He works for Merrill Lynch.

Grrrr, Bloomberg. Don't get me started...

Unknown said...

Bev: The Left Coast was amazingly quiet, at least here in the north. Just the usual May Day "happy communists" junk and some immigration anger thrown in for good measure. Los Angeles got the big, unruly demonstrations this time. I'm so pleased that New York and San Francisco are sister sanctuary cities. Not like those primitives in Arizona at all.

I'm old enough to remember the Kitty Genovese murder in Kew Gardens, and the complete lack of any effort by the residents to stop the attack or even call the police. Though the story got somewhat exaggerated, there were still at least a dozen witnesses who did absolutely nothing. It originated the excuse "I didn't want to get involved." Apparently, not much has changed. And the one person in your example who did get involved, got a death sentence from the bystanders who did nothing, again. Very sad.

Tennessee Jed said...

nice post, Bev. Adam Clayton Powell IV, huh. Now there is a memory laner if ever I heard. Who do you like as a potential gubnatorial? Must be honest, though, I'm happiest when Mets are crashing and burning.

BevfromNYC said...

TJ: Thanks! Don't worry too much about the Mets. It's early yet and they are always great this time in the season. They will start to tank somewhere around All Star game time.

And, truly, we are still shaking things out for the run for Governor. Hopefully, by the end of May someone will definitely want to run. Even Cuomo, the heir to the Governorship hasn't officially declared he's running yet. The self-proclaimed "Tea Party" candidate Carl Paladino turned out to be a horse's behind and a racist of some sort. Of course, NY Tea Party people were not aware we had chosen any candidates, but whatever. Honestly, I think Cuomo is a shoe-in. It's the family business after all. [His father, Mario, was Governor for 3 terms in '80's and early '90's]

BevfromNYC said...

LawHawk: It's astounding that someone could walk passed someone spread out on the street and NOT even dial 911 while jogging away. BTW, the police are still looking for the woman. They think she was having a fight with her boyfriend.

Oh, and the young woman who thinks it's better to kill old people, instead of being concerned she might have killed someone, she was concerned she was late for court. Why did she have a court date? Her mother had her arrested for stealing from her. Such a sad world.

BevfromNYC said...

This just in: Time Square was evacuated at around 6:30pm while the bomb squad removed a car bomb from an SUV. WOW! Thank you, NYC Finest, NYC Bravest, and what I now deem them - NYC Amazingest (bomb squad people). No lives lost.

Joel Farnham said...

Bev,

I think the intention of the bombing attempt was to celebrate May Day. Fortunately no one was hurt.

Ooutside of Drudge Report, I have heard little of May Day festivities.

BevfromNYC said...

The Union Square rally got eclipsed by the Times Square attempted bombing. It is reported in the middle of the papers that there were approx a 1000 at Foley Square and 2000 at Union Square. That's pretty small turnout considering it was a beautiful day for a rally.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I thought your sanctuary city was supposed to turn out "millions" for their rallies? Hmmm.

By the way, I'm reading now that they're thinking the car bomb might be linked to the South Park issue. Interesting.

BevfromNYC said...

Yeah, I'm surprised that there weren't more too.

I read that in the comments on HuffPo. The car was parked a few blocks from the Viacom building. The surveillance tapes will be valuable. The car had stolen plates.

Writer X said...

Bloomberg--yet another public official who hasn't read the AZ immigration law but is giddy with expressing his righteous indignation. Maybe he can invite the brain-trust known as Shakira to New York like Mayor Gordon did in Phoenix.

BevfromNYC said...

Writer X he probably didn't even read the law. He certainly doesn't read the laws in his own city. Term limit laws being just one.

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