Tag: nyc

My RedState post on Obama, Schumer, and anti-terrorism funding.

Found here.  Short version: it will shock none of you to hear that this administration has no idea how to treat its friends, either. And that’d be true even if it turns out that the administration didn’t cut anti-terrorism funding to NYC just because they’re mad at Chuck Schumer.

NYC Councilman proposes rules to cull bicyclists from the gene pool.

At least, that’s how it sounds to me: “Big Apple bicyclists would be allowed to cruise through red lights and stop signs after merely slowing down and looking both ways, under a proposed bill by a city councilman.”  It sounds very, very Darwinian: admittedly, nobody can drive very fast in NYC, but mass is mass.  And when a bike and rider meet a car, it’s typically the bike and rider that suddenly, and temporarily, go airborne.

Moe Lane

PS: Car accidents are traumatic. Also, somebody has to clean that stuff up afterward.

Tweet of the Day, This This Chick-fil-A Picture Should Surprise Nobody edition.

Note: that line is for the NYC Chick-fil-A opening tomorrow.

On the other hand; just wait until they find out that no, it’s never going to be open on Sunday.  And there’s nothing anybody can ever do about that.  And yes, it hurts us all. It hurts us all sorely.

Moe Lane

PS: Do I dare hope that somebody will attempt to engage in Chick-fil-A Trooferism?

A federal minimum wage should be anathema to anybody who likes local city life.

(Via Hot Air) I was struck by something when I read this: “Neither Obama nor Clinton has spoken critically of a $15-an-hour federal minimum. But recent comments from the candidate, and from officials in Obama’s administration, suggest Clinton and Obama may be worried that such a large increase could prove too much for some parts of the country to bear.” To wit, that this may be one situation where the Democratic establishment may not actually understand the motivations of its own liberal base. For that matter, possibly the liberal base doesn’t really actively understand said motivations either. Continue reading A federal minimum wage should be anathema to anybody who likes local city life.

Widespread touchscreen ordering to come to NYC fast food restaurants by next year?

Probably.

The Wall Street Journal reports that, on Wednesday, as predicted, the panel convened by Governor Cuomo to study fast-food wages will formally recommend paying workers statewide $15 an hour — a substantial raise that’s nearly double the current rate of $8.75. The only step left is an okay from Acting Labor Commissioner Mario Musolino (which he’s expected to give), and then Cuomo can move forward (which there’s every indication he will) regardless of how the Legislature feels about it. So it looks likely that a big raise will come to New York’s fast-food workers.

Continue reading Widespread touchscreen ordering to come to NYC fast food restaurants by next year?

Uber versus De Blasio.

Don’t let that last sentence get in the way of enjoying this looming confrontation. After all, David Plouffe is merely a mercenary: Uber bought him fair and square, which was of course their privilege. Heck, for enough money the Republican nominee could buy Plouffe next year…

[NYC Mayor Bill] de Blasio is about to cap the number of drivers of Ubers and other for-hire car companies, a move that will in turn place limits on a service that is popular among its users, and which has no organized opposition. He is walking into a political buzzsaw: Uber has endless cash, real panic about getting capped in its biggest market, and every incentive to make an example of the high-profile New York mayor. The campaign is being run by David Plouffe, who once pulled off the rather impressive feat of persuading Democrats to hate the Clintons, and who immediately made it personal.

So, let’s be dispassionate about this. If Uber wins, then Mayor de Blasio gets metaphorically kicked in the testicles.  This is, of course, a good thing. But if de Blasio wins, then the Democratic nominee next year is going to keep being stuck in a position where s/he has to keep defending attacks on a cab service that a critical part of his/her base – young people – kind of love.  Plus, attacking Uber just makes the attacker look old. …Which the Democratic nominee will be, of course.

Moe Lane

PS: I don’t know if anybody’s mentioned this to Buzzfeed yet, but the problem for the Left with de Blasio turning Uber into the NRA is that the NRA keeps winning. Although I have to give them credit for accurately describing Governor Andrew Cuomo as somebody whose ‘favorite hobby is humiliating the mayor.’

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

NYC continues its slow slide off of the beam. :shrug: Ehh, they chose their fate.

(Via Instapundit) Yeah, I’m just going to skip going into NYC for, oh, about a decade or so:

All summer long, then-candidate Bill de Blasio pulled no punches in his opposition to aggressive policing — in particular, to stop-and-frisk — and so the principal question going into his mayoralty was this: When it comes to public safety, did he believe his own rhetoric?

Turns out, Bill’s a believer.

He made that clear enough last week, standing super-tall with all the usual suspects — plus, ominously, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton — to announce not only that the city is rescinding its appeal of last year’s discredited federal-court stop-and-frisk ruling, but that it’s unilaterally adopting policies that over time stand to make the city much less safe.

Continue reading NYC continues its slow slide off of the beam. :shrug: Ehh, they chose their fate.

Tweet of the Day, We’d All Actually Like To Be Proved Wrong On This edition.

It’s just that we’re not expecting to be.

:shrug: It’s not like I own any property in NYC anyway.

The NYC Mayoral Kitten controversy.

Well, this is an interesting problem in the NYC Mayor’s campaign:

Today, Dan Amira gave the candidates a “no” test, and only Republican Joe Lhota passed it. The question was: Would you shut down two subway lines for 90 minutes to save a couple of kittens who are loose on the tracks, as NYC Transit did yesterday?

[snip]

Only Lhota gave the correct answer: No, you do not strand thousands of New Yorkers for 90 minutes in a futile effort to herd two cats whose lives we are inexplicably prioritizing over the rats who are run over, or drowned, or exterminated in the subways every day.

Continue reading The NYC Mayoral Kitten controversy.