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?