Tag: new york

Oh, God, there are *so* many bad puns available for this Weiner poll story…

…including one that would probably get me in major hot water, and deservedly so.  Let us resist temptation:

Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner leads City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in the race for New York City’s Democratic mayoral nomination for the first time, snatching the frontrunner mantle as the contest heads into the final months before the primary, the latest survey from The Wall Street Journal-NBC New York-Marist showed.

Among registered Democrats, Mr. Weiner had 25% of the vote, compared with Ms. Quinn, who had 20%, marking her lowest level of support since polling of the race began. Trailing them were former Comptroller Bill Thompson, at 13%, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, 10% and city Comptroller John Liu, 8%.

It’s gonna be a heck of a campaign. This is, like, going to give me free copy for months.

Moe Lane

 

Anthony Weiner to run for NYC mayor.

…Bless his heart.

“Look, I made some big mistakes and I know I let a lot of people down,” Mr. Weiner said in an online video. “But I’ve also learned some tough lessons. I’m running for mayor because I’ve been fighting for the middle class and those struggling to make it my entire life. And I hope I get a second chance to work for you.”

I know, I know: the jokes write themselves: and they will be written, I assure you.  Buuuut here’s the problem, though: when it comes to the Democratic primary, Anthony Weiner’s probably the best of a bad bunch who could actually win.  And if he wins the primary then he’s in good shape to win the election, unless of course the New York GOP suddenly gets replaced with sinister android doubles secretly devoted to a master plan for world domination*.  In other words, I’m faced with a situation where I may have to sigh a lot and say Well, he’s better than either Bloomberg was, or Quinn would have been.

Which isn’t hard, of course.  I’d offer some advice along those lines to Weiner, except that I actually happen to despise the smug son of a bitch.

Moe Lane

*Said plan would presumably involve the state GOP winning critical races in New York, which would at least make for a refreshing novelty.

“Complicated, but all bad.”

There’s just something so… anticipatory… about hearing that a state senator was wearing a wire.  Welcome to New York!

Almost a quarter of the state Senate’s Democratic conference was in the FBI’s cross hairs last year, according to a court filing unsealed Wednesday.

Last summer, federal investigators asked state Sen. Shirley Huntley to invite six Democratic colleagues to her Queens home and record their conversations. According to a sentencing memo written by Huntley’s lawyer, the former lawmaker told prosecutors — who had charged her with siphoning money from a nonprofit group for which she secured state money — that she “had knowledge of what she believed to be corruption involving [nine] public officials.”

Huntley, a grandmother and former PTA leader, taped them all.

Continue reading “Complicated, but all bad.”

New York corrupt politicians are PIKERS. Pikers!

John Podheretz* is infuriated about the recent state-level corruption scandals in New York, and I don’t blame him one bit:

In rich countries and poor countries, dictatorships and democracies, politicians who wet their beaks usually do so in ways that at least seek to close the financial gap between them and the people from whom they’re taking the bribes.

But among the many distressingly low-rent qualities our politicians possess, none is more contemptible than just how cheaply they are willing to sell themselves. People who get caught in what appear to be open-and-shut corruption scandals are doing so for pennies on the dollar — pennies on the dollar, I tell you!

Read the whole thing: it’s depressingly hysterical.  Incidentally, the word is coming down (H/T: Instapundit) that the second wave of corruption revelations that happened Thursday is not really related to the first; the only real similarity between the two is that in both cases apparently New York state legislators are downright eager to drop dimes on their compatriots in exchange for leniency.  With any luck, this will end up scorching the earth of both parties (because God knows the NY GOP can’t really get worse)…

Moe Lane

*H/T…  John Podheretz.

Welp. It’s a banner day for New York politicians getting arrested.

(H/T: Jammie Wearing Fools) Geez Louise.

State Sen. Malcolm Smith and city Councilman Dan Halloran were arrested this morning on charges they were plotting to rig this year’s mayoral election through fraud and bribes.

The pols allegedly formed an alliance built on cash payments and fraud to get Smith — one of the state’s top Democrats — placed on the GOP mayoral ballot, sources said.

FBI agents arrested them both at their Queens homes shortly after 6 a.m.

You may remember Malcolm Smith from last December, when he half-broke from the Democratic party in order to join the Independent Democratic Caucus, which is the organization that is allowing the NY GOP to retain control of the state Senate.  I don’t think that Smith being thrown out on his ear will be enough to flip the state Senate back, but I guess that we’re about to find out! Dan Halloran is the neo-pagan guy (I mention this for identification purposes only: no, seriously, some of my best friends really ARE neo-pagans) who ran for Congress last year, and lost.  There’s a bunch of other people who got arrested, including some top NYC GOP party officials (Joseph Savino and Vincent Tabone) and the (Democratic*) mayor and assistant mayor of Spring Valley: which may explain why this story will be slow getting off the launching pad.  Everybody’s really busy checking first to make sure that none of their people are actually in the blast zone. Continue reading Welp. It’s a banner day for New York politicians getting arrested.

Andrew Cuomo will now quietly kill the seven bullet limit.

I’d like to think that the NY GOP got something out of their act of corporeal mercy… but probably not.

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s seven-round limit on magazines sold in New York will be suspended “indefinitely” by a measure in his $136.5 billion budget set to be passed this week, Dean Skelos, a Senate majority leader said.

For those who don’t remember: the ban was called into question when it came out that nobody actually made seven round magazines. The NY state government REALLY didn’t want that brought up in front of a court, given that the courts tend to frown on legislatures trying to get overly cute with the federal Constitution; and it’s pretty clear at this point that the Supreme Court feels inclined to spank gun-grabbers.  Particularly the ones that insist on wasting the Supreme Court’s valuable time. So… let the legislation be ‘suspended’ for a while; which probably translates to ‘never.’  Maybe they’ll revisit it when the shouting dies down.  And maybe they won’t, either.

Via Instapundit.

Moe Lane

PS: The New York state government is generally populated by blithering idiots who could not find their own rear ends in a dark room at night with a flashlight and a sex worker to help.  I just wish to note this for the (somewhat bowdlerized) record.

Andrew Cuomo admits that he done [expletive deleted] UP with NY’s 10-round magazine ban.

Governor Cuomo did this epically, admitting that the restrictions on magazine possession that he pushed through and signed into law earlier in the year are too flawed to exist, and need to be repealed.

“There is no such thing as a seven-bullet magazine. That doesn’t exist. So you really have no practical option.” – Andrew Cuomo

So why the [expletive deleted] did you sign it in the first place, you jumped-up, bed-hopping imbecile?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: This [expletive deleted]-head wants to replace the aforementioned impractical law with one that would only make it illegal to load more than seven bullets into a magazine.  Just in case you were thinking that  I was being unkind by calling Andrew Cuomo an ‘imbecile.’

Anthony Weiner looking to avenge himself upon Nancy Pelosi for some reason.

I admit it, I admit it: I’m kind of conflicted, here.

Disgraced pol Anthony Weiner is potentially climbing back into politics after recently spending more than $100,000 on campaign consulting and polling — and sources tell Page Six that one person he’s looking to prove wrong about him is House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who urged him to resign in 2011. “Weiner is still fuming over his downfall, and he blames Nancy Pelosi,” said a source. After Weiner’s sexting scandal, he announced he was going to get psychological treatment and take a leave from the House, but Pelosi released a statement calling for him to resign after he’d informed her of his plan to deal with the situation.

(Via JMF & Instapundit)

On the one hand, I don’t want to encourage anybody to think that they should be allowed to avoid responsibility for their own actions, which is what Anthony Weiner is trying to do here. On the other hand, pretty much everything can be ‘blamed’ on Nancy Pelosi, from why the Democrats didn’t take the House back to why FISA was reauthorized.  On the gripping hand, Nancy Pelosi was right.  If Weiner had tried to brazen it out he’d have lost anyway.

So I dunno.

Moe Lane

PS: The NY Post does so love its headlines.

Hey, if Anthony Weiner wants to run for NYC mayor, he can GO RIGHT AHEAD.

I applaud the efforts of Democratic politicians to ensure that I never run out of things to write about.  Particularly if Weiner runs on an explicit campaign of Shaddap about my past bad life choices and I’ll shaddap about yours. I mean, after three terms of Nanny Bloomberg New Yorkers have no right to complain about how somebody’s mere candidacy is degrading the dignity of the office of Mayor of NYC.  The man tried to ban extra-large Cokes, people.

And New Yorkers let him do that.

Seriously.  What the [expletive deleted] were you people thinking, anyway?

Andrew Cuomo tells local governments to consolidate.

Alternate title: Son, you’re on your own.

The New York state budget currently under negotiation may be remembered years from now as the beginning of the end for many small towns, cities and school districts.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo had tough words Friday for local officials facing fiscal crises and seeking more help from Albany, telling them they should consolidate services or whole governments and school districts rather than looking for relief from Albany.

(H/T: Instapundit) Translation: Andrew Cuomo has made all of the tentative, half-hearted attempts that he dared to rein in public sector unions. Any further shortfalls in revenue will simply have to be borne by the local authorities. If they don’t like that, well, they should have joined a public sector union. Continue reading Andrew Cuomo tells local governments to consolidate.