“Rick Perry’s traveling circus isn’t going to persuade New Yorkers who know a sideshow when they see one. The truth is Rick Perry has pushed a textbook right-wing agenda that is anti-middle-class, anti-women and something New Yorkers will overwhelmingly and easily reject...”
Yeah, except the facts are on Perry's side in this. The fact is that Texas is No. 1 in job growth and in having a business-friendly climate, and New York is...well, embarrassingly No. 49 in both categories. New York is only one step above New Jersey which I guess is something that Mark-Viverto can hang her hat on, I guess. Perry went so far as to challenge our Governor Andrew Cuomo to a duel...no, I mean, a debate on which state has the better business climate. As expected, Gov. Cuomo declined, but not before pointing out Perry's debate disaster in the last Presidential cycle. Now granted, Perry deserved that slap, but he also has the facts overwhelmingly on his side and Gov Cuomo knows he has no legs to stand on in that debate. Still, it made me laugh because it is such a Texan thing to do - being boastful and prideful of the Great State of Texas. It's what Texans expect from their Governor and why...well, Texas is No. 1 in job growth and in business-friendly climate-ness. At least, Mayor de Blasio stayed out of it.
Speaking of Mayor de Blasio, he has finally relented in his quest to shut down the carriage-horse trade in New York City. You may remember that one of his campaign promises was that on his first day in office, he was going to shut down those horse-carriages that clop through Central Park. He insisted that the horses were being mistreated and were no longer appropriate. Well, something happened on his way to the signing. 65% of New Yorkers didn't want the carriage-horses to be shut down. Actor Liam Neeson, a long-time resident of New York and friend to the mostly Irish carriage owners/operators, waged a heated public campaign to stop the stopping. He challenged the Mayor and anyone on the City Council to come to the stables and meet the men and women who take care of these beautiful animals to see how really well they are treated and regulated. The Mayor and most of the City Council members declined the offer and kept pushing for a ban. Mr. Neeson just pushed harder. The daily papers surprisingly supported Neeson and the pro-carriage trade people.
As an aside to the whole horse carriage issue and the plight of the poor horses, here are two issues that have not been raised:
#1 - We have an entire battalion of mounted police where the horses are all over the city in the same traffic as the carriages;
#2 - We have Belmont Park, a horse racing track in Queens and host of the third leg of the triple crown horse race - Belmont Stakes - where dozens of horses die every year as a result of the sport.
Not once has NYCLASS or PETA tried to shut either of these down on the same grounds which leads me to agree this is about a lucrative land deal more than the plight of the horses...
Well, as always, feel free to comment on these or any topic.
38 comments:
(Ratchets up sarcasm level to 9...no, make that a 15...)
So, Bev, you're saying this wasn't just about (allegedly) poor, mistreated horses...
but that there was actually an ulterior motive involving a mayoral political donor who sought to gain financially from all of this?
As I understand you New Yorkers are fond of saying..."Perish the thought!"
Bev, I've been watching Perry with interest. He's gone all out to rehabilitate himself after the last election debacle and his approach seems to be exactly what he's doing in New York. I think it's a great strategy, especially for Texas, and I'll be curious to see if it helps him in 2016. One thing is for sure though, he's ruffled a lot of liberal feathers... liberals who have no answer for what he's doing.
On the horses, I'm glad they won. This always seemed like a real dirty deal and I was thrilled to see Neeson just b*tch-slap de Blasio over and over about this. Maybe we can ban de Blasio from the city?
Apparently PETA protested in front of Neeson's NY apartment.
I've been happy to see Rick Perry pushing criminal reform.
Proof positive pushing bullies back, harder, gets the results we want.
"Fight back!"
A.BREITBART
Money buys influence? The Supreme Court begs to differ!
Seriously, de Blasio seems to be paving the way for 16 more years (or however long the Republicans were in office before) of Republican mayorship.
Doing something bizarre/harmful as a favor to a big donor is pretty much par for the course, but smart politicians do it quietly unless the move can be plausible spun as principle driven.
Bev -
I think you're forgetting the most important piece of news to come out of NYC this week.
:-)
Okay, so I may have jumped the gun a little in the carriage horse wars. Today, the Mayor is floating the offer of taxi medallions worth $1million to the carriage drivers for free in exchange for giving up the carriage trade. These medallions are very hard to come by, however I am just not sure how driving a yellow cab is a reasonable substitute for driving a romantic horse-drawn carriage around Central Park. But then I am not desperate like de Blasio.
I never thought I would live to see the day that Ron Kuby and I agreed on anything..but today it happened. LINK to today's Daily News Op/Ed
OMG, Scott!! How did I miss that?? Cats dining al fresco! It is about time...okay, I do not like cats, but hey, other people do! This is almost as good as the new cupcake vending machine on 60th & Lex!
Seriously, de Blasio seems to be paving the way for 16 more years ...of Republican mayorship.
Anthony, I am surprised at how all of the newspapers have been go at him almost non-stop. And rightfully so. He keeps bungling his mission right and left. And he makes Bloomberg's billionaire arrogance almost charming. He has certainly taken his political marching orders from the DNC right down to those "mean ol' Republicans who hate everyone and everything" mantra. Only problem is that there really aren't any real Republicans around. Unless you count Andrew Cuomo who is moderate Democrat which, who has become de Blasio's mortal enemy to be crushed. I can't really figure out that dynamic yet.
EricP - You and Breitbart was right. We can't complaint if we don't push back.
Andrew - though I don't know if Perry can rehabilitate himself on the national stage or not, he did appear completely confident and unfazed by all the criticism heaped on him by the lefties here. Cuomo was really annoyed to be challenged since he is also challenged by his own for not being leftist enough. Poor Cuomo can't catch a break...
Rustbelt - As hard as it is to imagine, not everything the left does is motivated by the betterment of all humanity and earthly creatures. And I thought New Yorkers were fond of saying "Fuggediboutit!"? And what I heard yesterday on the street. I was in the Garment District (39th/7th Avenue) and this guy standing next to a big truck was yelling into his cell "If you screw with me, I WILL CRUSH YOU!!" And he looked like someone who could make a call and actually have someone crushed! It was like a movie.
Rancher Cliven Bundy, hero of the Fringe, recently made some rather interesting comments regarding blacks and slavery.
LINK
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“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.
“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”
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Since then, Republicans have distancing themselves from his comments.
LINK
A spokesman for Nevada Republican senator Dean Heller said “disagrees with Mr. Bundy’s appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way.”
Rand Paul also issued a statement: "His remarks on race are offensive and I wholeheartedly disagree with him."
Kit, I saw that. I am not surprised in the least... though his supporters apparently are.
Not to change the subject, but did you hear that we have deployed troops to Poland?
Bev, It's about time we got a piece of the Polish action. Seriously, the Germans, the Russians, the Swedes, the French... but never us. It's time to teach those stupid Pollacks a lesson!! Woo hoo!!!
Uh... I'm told I may have a fact or two wrong about why we're in Poland.
Hurray for our friends the smart and competent Poles!
Oh, yeah, and this may come as a bigger shock. Israel has broken off the peace talks with the Palestinians, well because the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have just signed some reconciliation agreement. Yeah, one would think that the Palestinians just really aren't interested in any kind of peace accord with Israel. Hmmm. The one I feel sorry for is Sec't Kerry...there went his Nobel Peace Prize.
As an off topic aside, one of the things that always makes me laugh is how these fringers go on and on about upholding the white race, American manhood, the one true Bible etc. etc. Then they get arrested and we learn things like this about them:
KKK Shooter Into Cross-dressing black men.
Every single time.
NUH-UH!!! Oh, no, he didn't! That's is just crazy...and the FBI knew about him too. And the even sicker more heinous irony of it all, the three people he gunned down weren't even Jewish - not one of them.
Bev, It's like a perfect storm of whacko, isn't it?
Kit,
I heard Glenn Beck ripping Bundy for those comments (inbetween hawking survivalist goods which would allow people to survive the coming apocalypse) this morning. Impressive stuff.
Sadly, Bundy's comments aren't too far off from what many mainstream conservatives (including black conservatives) have said, but maybe the scathing conservative condemnation of this latest comment signals that a page has been turned.
I'm just a random dude on the internet but for years if been my view that such language is counterproductive because slavery analogies are a fast way to end civil debate. Such a ongoing stalemate suits Democrats (who have 90% of the black vote) fine, but Republicans shouldn't be content with it.
Anthony,
Here is my problem with the "blacks were better off as slaves": It goes directly counter to the American ideals of freedom. That people have a right to chart their own path in life. Slavery denies a person that right. They cannot rise and make something of themselves.
This also kills any motivation on the part of a slave to work hard. Why work hard if all it gets you is to avoid a lash. You can't work harder and expect much of a reward so why put effort into it?
How is supporting slavery in line with America's values of freedom, hard work, and making something of yourself?
Kit,
Yeah, such talk ignores two basic tenets of human nature and conservative philosophy.
1) People want to be free
2) Power imbalances create abuse
Kit and Anthony,
The problem with slavery analogies, just like Hitler analogies, is that they tend to show the person making the analogy as being wildly out of touch with reality or at least having no sense of what they are talking about.
For example, comparing a President who issues a legal executive order with a man who controlled German at a life and death level, ruled through terror and murder, and started wars that killed 50 million people is ignorant and delusional at best. It's comparing a brutal murder to a paper cut, and the fact they can't see that tells us that their judgment should not be trusted.
Andrew,
I think you are right.
Bev-
Just wait until the Horse Union gets involved although they may be in trouble due to illegal immigrant horses from arabia and that their cadillac (or is it quarterhorse) plan is going to be taxed extra.
Personally I think it's weird to see horses in a downtown major city but that's just me.
"...KKK 'Jewish center shooter' ... was caught having sex with a black male prostitute dressed as a woman"
This would be hysterically funny if he wasn´t a killer. All these guys are just seedy lowlifes straight from a bad b-movie.
About Bundy, he´s finished. I guess there is a chance that Bundy just isn´t used to speaking in public, he´s no damn pundit and didn´t literally mean to say that slavery was no worse or better. It´s just a manner of speaking, like calling your wife a harpy when she merely reminds you of one. So maybe, just maybe he is an ornery yokel but not personally racist. But I´m afraid I wouldn´t bet money on it.
I still think there is something anachronistic and third-worldish about the federal government owning so much land and the people working the land having no title and having to give way to whatever the government really cares about. Bundy doesn´t have to be a good man for that to be true. As Kevin Williamson pointed out, Gandhi was a f*cking weirdo too. There, I compared Bundy to Gandhi. Then again, I never liked Gandhi. He didn´t like black people either. In both cases, when people turn them into heroes, I cringe.
Andrew,
Speaking of idiotic, racist statements, Democratic Illinois Governor Pat Quinn could give Bundy lessons.
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http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/04/24/dem-gov-wonders-whether-black-republicans-are-jewish-nazis
Illinois Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn is in some hot water with the Jewish community after his campaign tweeted—and then quietly deleted—several messages urging backers to read an article comparing black Republican voters to Jews who collaborated with the Nazis.
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Anthony, What an ass! I'm genuinely sick of Democrats saying crap like that. We need a counter-strategy.
El Gordo, Agreed. It's not funny because this sicko killed people, but the irony is very rich -- as is the fact this keeps being the case with these guys.
Bundy is finished.
On the land ownership, the problem is that no one else wants the land. It's not like the feds won't sell most of it... it's just worthless desert or brush or unreachable mountain country.
Andrew,
For my money Tim Scott's response to an NAACP leader calling him a ventriloquist dummy is probably the best way to respond to such insults (defend yourself but don't demean yourself by getting sucked into the verbal equivalent of a foodfight).
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Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/21/tim-scott-responds-to-naacp-insult-reminds-me-and-others-of-what-not-to-do/#ixzz301Df9xr6
“To reflect seriously on the comments a person, a pastor, that is filled with baseless and meaningless rhetoric would be to do a disservice to the very people who have sacrificed so much and paved a way,” Scott told The Daily Caller in an emailed statement. “Instead, I will honor the memory of Dr. King by being proactive in holding the door for others and serving my fellow man. And Rev. Barber will remind me and others of what not to do.”
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Scott explained that he has never met Barber and implied that the NAACP chapter head knows nothing about him.
“I did not meet him when I was failing out of high school. I did not see him on the streets of my neighborhoods where too many of my friends got off track and never recovered. I did not meet him when I was working 85 hour weeks to start my business, nor did I meet him when I was running for Congress against long odds. But who I did meet were people everywhere across this state who were willing to work hard and to help me succeed — and I them,” Scott said.
Noting that he has experienced the dreams of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “as a proud South Carolinian,” Scott pointed to his “Opportunity Agenda” as a way to promote success by providing Americans more opportunity and making government less intrusive.
Andrew,
Most mass shooters turn out to be losers. Same with Neo-Nazis.
Kit, Exactly, because people with lives and loved ones don't think like that.
Anthony, That's an awesome response. First, he notes that this guy is all talk and wasn't there to help him when he needed him, and then he dismisses him as an example of what not to do. That's a hard attack to turn around.
Anthony,
That is what TVTropes calls a "Crowning Moment of Awesome".
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