Tag: new york

Martha Robertson (D CAND, New York-2[3*]) using already debunked DCCC talking points.

Martha Robertson (D CAND, NY-23), having apparently not learned her lesson about telling lies in the course of campaigning, is doubling down on stupid:

Two weeks ago, a local news station ran a story concerning Robertson’s claim that the VA suffered from “decades of underfunding.” That claim had previously been rates as false.

Robertson then shifted gears and falsely accused Congressman Reed of voting “against reducing the VA backlog, funding to process more disability claims for wounded warriors, medical and prosthetic research, medical services for post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide prevention, and homeless programs for veterans.”

Martha got those talking points straight from a DCCC press release and THOSE EXACT TALKING POINTS WERE JUST RULED FALSE BY POLITIFACT.

Bolding the NRCC’s, for once: although I have to admit, it’s surprising to see Politifact actually smack down Democratic talking points like this, apparently on multiple occasions.

Continue reading Martha Robertson (D CAND, New York-2[3*]) using already debunked DCCC talking points.

Supreme Court decides that towns can have opening prayers.

Sounds like Anthony Kennedy had a nice breakfast that day.

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a town in upstate New York may begin its public meetings with a prayer from a “chaplain of the month.”

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in the 5-to-4 decision, said “ceremonial prayer is but a recognition that, since this nation was founded and until the present day, many Americans deem that their own existence must be understood by precepts far beyond that authority of government to alter or define.”

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the town’s practices could not be reconciled “with the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share of her government.”

The case was Greece v. Galloway, for those interested: Not much further to say on this subject, except for one, probably rude, observation: the NYT has a picture of one of the plaintiffs, and she looks precisely like how I would expect a person willing to take her dislike of Christian opening prayers all the way to the Supreme Court would look like.  …And I’ll just stop there, before I get mean.  Or more mean.

Politico: Sean Eldridge (D CAND, NY-19) is hiding from… pretty much everybody.

There was a spot of bother about this Politico video – it appeared, went down, and is back up again – but everything is fine now and there will be pie. And it’s the best kind of pie. It may very well be DOOM pie for Sean Eldridge.

Basically, the video shows Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt describing how Sean Eldridge – the presumed Democratic candidate for NY-19 – has been essentially hiding from reporters and the district for the last several months (Eldridge is apparently also using his company to try to trade votes for jobs*). Which is frankly bizarre, particularly since Republican incumbent Chris Gibson was reportedly happy to talk to Isenstadt: as Politico notes, often it’s the other way around. Continue reading Politico: Sean Eldridge (D CAND, NY-19) is hiding from… pretty much everybody.

Cigarette smuggling business booming in NYC. Of course.

There are days when I wish that classes in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century European history were mandatory for government officials – wait, no, I always wish that. There are simply days where my desires are given explicit validation by a new report: “More than half of the cigarettes sold in New York State are smuggled in from other places to avoid the Empire State’s taxes on smokes, which have soared nearly 200 percent since 2006, according to a report issued by the conservative Tax Foundation.” And apparently that’s also true for a bunch of other places in at least the Northeast.

Now, the reason for the history: if our erstwhile public servants had ever read any (books that have ‘Peoples’ or ‘Social’ in the title don’t count) they’d know that when you create a situation where a legal good is available in one place for price X, and available in another for price X+Y, with Y being a protective / ruinously high government tariff, something inevitably happens.  And no, that inevitable thing is not smuggling.  Human beings already smuggle as naturally as we breathe. It is practically instinctive for us. No, what inevitably happens in that situation is that the population enthusiastically joins in on breaking the law. And gets remarkably close-mouthed when tax men start nosing around*. Continue reading Cigarette smuggling business booming in NYC. Of course.

Domenic Recchia (D-CAND, New York-11) was ready to literally CROWN @barackobama in 2009.

Never say anything in 2009 that you’re going to regret in 2014.

Particularly if you plan to run in a R+4 district in that year.  Domenic Recchia was presumably a bit stoked from having a member of his party become President (from context, it looks like this was in January of 2009), but that’s no real excuse to say politically illiterate stuff like this:

“Now let the future begin, of the Barack Obama dynasty. Because that’s what it’s about to become. The dynasty of Barack Obama.”

…Oh, dear Lord in Heaven, but the things that are wrong with that statement. Continue reading Domenic Recchia (D-CAND, New York-11) was ready to literally CROWN @barackobama in 2009.

Remington may be ‘expanding’ to Alabama.

This is very much an unconfirmed report, but if it’s true… oops?

High level sources have informed Yellowhammer News that Remington, one of the world’s largest gun manufacturers, will on Monday join Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley in announcing that they are bringing over 2,000 jobs to Alabama.

The company is viewing the move into Alabama as an expansion, but it will likely impact their Ilion, NY plant as well. The New York facility currently employees around 1,200 people. It is expected to stay open, but with a reduced workforce.

Continue reading Remington may be ‘expanding’ to Alabama.

There is *one* class of people whose access to guns I’d control.

Democratic gun-grabbers (including their staff). They just won’t take firearm possession seriously:

The Cuomo administration has obtained a waiver to allow the head of the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services to carry a handgun at work.

The required sign-off from a law barring state employees from packing a weapon at their workplace came from the state Office of General Services four days after the Times Union published a story about DHSES Commissioner Jerome M. Hauer using his handgun’s laser sighting attachment as a pointer in a meeting with a Swedish delegation.

The Daily Caller goes on to note:

Officials at the meeting said “that three Swedish emergency managers in the delegation were rattled when the gun’s laser tracked across one of their heads before Hauer found the map of New York, at which he wanted to point,” according to the Times Union.

Continue reading There is *one* class of people whose access to guns I’d control.

As above, so below: de Blasio imitates @barackobama’s ‘punctuality.’

There’s no reason to be surprised at this:

Mayor de Blasio was true to form in his first State of the City speech — he started late.

The crowd of community leaders and elected officials, including Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Charles Rangel, were told to put away their phones just before the designated start time at noon.

But they then sat cooling their heels for another 20 minutes before the mayor took the stage.

Bill de Blasio has seen that Barack Obama has easily gotten away with not showing up to things on time; and thus, so will he. Whether de Blasio can get away with it is, of course, another story entirely.

Via:

 

Moe Lane

Good news: Bill de Blasio appoints gentrifier to head City Planning. #nyc

No, I am not being sarcastic, actually.

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday appointed a veteran of the struggles to transform New York City neighborhoods such as Times Square into hubs of tourism, luxury housing and high-price offices to lead the city’s urban-planning efforts.

The choice of Carl Weisbrod, an elder statesmen of the city’s development community, to lead the City Planning Commission and the City Planning Department unsettled some of the mayor’s liberal supporters and reassured the real-estate industry.

I mean, did you ever SEE the sh*thole that was Times Square before it got fixed?  I walked through there ONCE in the bad old days, and didn’t go back for years afterward.  People on the Left may sneer at ‘Disneyification:’ but what they carefully forget to mention is that the process by definition makes the surroundings safer for kids. Mayor de Blasio is going to run NYC in the ground, sure – but at least he’s not appointing somebody who actually regrets losing Times Square to the forces of bourgeois morality*. Continue reading Good news: Bill de Blasio appoints gentrifier to head City Planning. #nyc

Bill De Blasio starts up GOP recruitment drive on Upper East Side.

Oh, this is going to be a fun four years.  Especially since I don’t work in the City anymore.

It really is a tale of two cities — this time with the tony Upper East Side getting the shaft!

Huge swaths of the city’s wealthiest neighborhood had been not been plowed by early Tuesday evening, leaving 1-percenters out in the cold, according to the city’s own map of snow-plower activity.

“He is trying to get us back. He is very divisive and political,” said writer and Life-long Upper East Sider and mom Molly Jong Fast of Mayor de Blasio.

Molly is, by the way, the daughter of Erica Jong, and is not particularly less liberal than is her mother.  I mention this in case you were wondering whether we might have infiltrated a recon team into the UES: nope, that’s one pure my-ox-just-got-gored Democrat, there.

Continue reading Bill De Blasio starts up GOP recruitment drive on Upper East Side.