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Bill de Blasio Tag

A New York City police officer and mother of three was assassinated in her vehicle this week. The city also graduated a new class of police officers. None of that seems to matter to Mayor Bill de Blasio who left town to be with left wing protesters at the G-20 conference in Germany.

If this weren't so infuriating, it might be funny . . . Appearing on CNN this morning to discuss President Trump's plan to cut funds to sanctuary cities, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio implied that the city will not cooperate in the deportation of thieves who don't use violence because they might be the "breadwinners" of their families. Message to the mayor: thieves aren't bread "winners." They are bread stealers. They're taking bread from the mouths of children whose family earned it legally. In this theater of the absurd, de Blasio held up a list of crimes for which NYC would cooperate with immigration authorities. And non-violent theft is apparently not on the list.

The nation's largest sanctuary cities, San Francisco and New York City, are busily revisiting their budgets in anticipation of President-elect Trump taking office and making good on his pledge to slash federal monies sanctuary cities currently receive. From the federal government, San Francisco gets a billion dollars each year, and New York City gets approximately $7 billion each year.   For some perspective, NYC receives more money from the federal government than the state budgets for Delaware ($4.1 billion), Mississippi ($6.4 billion), New Hampshire ($5.7 billion), Oklahoma ($6.8 billion), South Dakota ($4.5 billion), and Vermont ($5.8 billion). San Francisco is struggling with budget-related problems already, and with Trump's threat of withdrawing up to a billion federal tax dollars, the city is anticipating further budget issues.

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio has his problems, including a probe into alleged campaign fundraising improprieties. So what did he do? Pick-a-Fight with Chick-fil-A. Via BizPac Review (h/t Bo Snerdly):
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for a boycott of popular restaurant chain Chick-fil-A, presumably for its founder, Dan Cathy’s, past public statements supporting traditional marriage.

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is facing a corruption scandal that has Michael Goodwin at the New York Post announcing that the mayor is "going down." Goodwin writes:
Less than a week ago, Mayor de Blasio was offering aid to Ecuadorians after the earthquake there. Now a political earthquake is rocking City Hall and the mayor is the one who needs help. The report from the state Board of Elections that accuses him and his team of “willful and flagrant” violations of campaign-finance laws immediately changes everything. The veneer of business as usual is shredded. Never again can de Blasio wave off questions about the mushrooming investigations of his administration. As revelations pile up day after day, allies will desert him and the Putz will find himself a very lonely man.
The litany of scandals facing de Blasio is captured in the cover that ran with Goodwin's article:

At an event on Saturday night, Hillary Clinton and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio made a lame attempt at humor which was blatantly racist. The New York Times chose to call it a "racially charged" joke:
Racially Charged Joke by Hillary Clinton and Bill de Blasio Leaves Some Cringing In less than three minutes, a comedy routine between Hillary Clinton and Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York managed to cause a storm of controversy over a racially charged joke. It happened on Saturday night when Mrs. Clinton made a surprise visit to the Inner Circle dinner, an annual black-tie event that brings together the city’s press corps, lobbyists and lawmakers. She strode on stage with Mr. de Blasio and Leslie Odom Jr., the actor who plays Aaron Burr in the hit musical “Hamilton.”

Hillary Clinton no longer has to feel singled out for being investigated by the FBI. She is now joined by New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Mayor Bill de Blasio Defends Fundraising as Probe Widens New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio defended his fundraising activities on Sunday after reports surfaced about a federal investigation into the matter, and said neither he nor his aides have been contacted by investigators. “Everything we’ve done is appropriate and carefully done with many, many lawyers, I assure you,” Mr. de Blasio said during an interview on NBC.

New York City mayor, Bill De Blasio, has taken a peculiar stance in his defense of the increase of stabbings in NYC; he asserts that these stabbings are the (positive?) result of fewer guns on the streets. Fox5ny reports:
New York mayor Bill de Blasio is trying to put a positive spin on a recent rash of stabbings and slashings across the city.  He credits the NYPD taking guns off of the street. "I'm not a criminologist but I can safely say that guns are being taken off the street in an unprecedented way.  Some people, unfortunately, are turning to a different weapon," de Blasio says. New Yorkers have been on edge because of a series of highly-reported attacks, including several seemingly random attacks on the subways.  The city was averaging more than 10 stabbing attacks a day in the first six weeks of the year.

Under Democratic Mayor de Blasio's tutelage, a crime wave has settled over Manhattan's iconic green space. Beleaguered by muggers and other hoodlums, Central Parks is no longer the safe haven in the middle of Manhattan that it once was. With no substantive ideas or plans to curb the sudden onset of violence, Central Park's degeneration seems be an indefinite, yet completely preventable misfortune. The New York Post has chronicled the increase of criminal activity in NYC's beloved park where muggings have doubled from this time last year.
Though felony assaults are down in the park this year, misdemeanor assaults are up. There were 15 misdemeanor assaults between Jan. 1 and July 26 of this year, as opposed to 11 for the same period last year. And narcotics arrests in the park have more than doubled this year. There were 23 drug busts between Jan. 1 and July 26 of this year, as opposed to 10 for the same period last year. Still, the number of criminal summonses has taken a nose dive, Perhaps pointing to more lax enforcement if such quality of life offenses as loitering, disorderly conduct, or public drinking and urinating. Between Jan. 1 and July 26, parks cops wrote 2,100 summonses. But during the same months of last year, they wrote 3,026 summonses.

Less than two weeks ago, Uber won a battle against New York City's cab cartels and anti-consumer choice advocates like Mayor DeBlasio. Under the guise of monitoring traffic flow, DeBlasio attempted to pass legislation that would've limited the number of Uber vehicles allowed in the city. Failing to whip the requisite number of votes to pass the measure, DeBlasio and the cab cartels were defeated and Uber reigned victorious. That victory was short-lived. NYC's elected officials and the cities cab cartels are once again trying to stifle the ride-share economy. This time, DeBlasio and crew are targeting Uber's pricing. The New York Post reports:
Administration officials are studying how to curb the price of a fare Uber can charge during peak hours, prevent livery drivers from dropping non-Uber customers for Uber rides, and help taxis develop their own app to make hailing a cab easier, say sources familiar with City Hall.

Last year marked the twenty-year anniversary of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" that is often credited with helping usher in the 1994 Republican Revolution.  The Gingrich "Contract with America" was a simple, straightforward list of major reforms Republicans promised to introduce and bring up for a vote should they take control of Congress:
  • A balanced budget amendment and line item veto;
  • A crime bill that funds police and prisons over social programs;
  • Real welfare reform;
  • Family reinforcement measures that strengthen parental rights in education and child support enforcement;
  • Family tax cuts;
  • Stronger national defense;
  • A rise in the Social Security earnings limit to stop penalizing working seniors;
  • Job creation and regulatory reform policies;
  • Common sense legal reforms to stop frivolous lawsuits; and
  • A first-ever vote on term limits for members of Congress.
Within the first 100 days, the first Republican majority in both Houses of Congress in 40 years, passed bills tackling almost every item (the notable exception: term limits for Congress). That was then.

A vital debate is taking place in New York City right now. According to Seth Barron of City Journal, the City Council is considering the decriminalization of minor crimes:
Who Needs Quality of Life, Anyway? Last week, the New York City Council announced that it was preparing legislation to reduce the penalties for a host of “minor crimes.” Open urination, drinking alcohol in public, riding bikes on the sidewalk, and other public-order infractions like subway fare-beating would no longer be considered criminal violations but rather civil offenses, akin to parking near a crosswalk. Instead of receiving a summons to appear in court, violators could pay a fine through the mail. Proponents offer a simple explanation for why the changes are necessary: the negative effect that interaction with the criminal justice system has on those who receive summonses. Council Member Jumaane Williams has separately bemoaned the arrest of people for “minor infractions” in the subway on the grounds that “an arrest can cause significant stress” for the arrestee, as well as imposing “financial hardship.”
The public urination proposal is turning into something of a pissing contest among politicians:

Uh oh, it looks like a certain someone didn't get the message the first time. Bill de Blasio's effectiveness as the mayor of New York City is open for debate, but his dedication to progressive politics is beyond dispute. The American left adores him, so his reticence to endorse Mrs. Clinton comes as no surprise. Like many people in the Warren Wing of the Democratic Party, he's not quite ready for Hillary. Daniel Halper of the Weekly Standard:
De Blasio Shuns Hillary: 'This Is a Different Country We’re Living in Right Now' New York City mayor Bill de Blasio once again refused to endorse his former boss, Hillary Clinton, in remarks today. "This is a different country we’re living in right now, and I think we need to hear a vision that relates to this tim," de Blasio said. The mayor also suggested that Clinton indeed is a candidate of yesterday. She's "a candidate who has not been in the public eye in this sense for almost eight years, and we're still beginning to hear what she stands for," he said. "It's normal to want to hear more."
Here's the video:

Hillary is supposed to announce her presidential run at 3 p.m. Eastern today. In the run up, the notorious Clinton smear machine already is lashing out at critics. NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, a progressive, made a reasonable statement that he wanted to hear more about her vision before he formally endorsed her: The response for Democratic operative Hillary Rosen (who famously disparaged Ann Romney), was a not too thinly veiled threat. Meanwhile, Hillary critics are being smeared as sexist by Democratic operatives at Think Progress and Media Matters:

Via The NY Daily News:
The weeping widow, her eyes spilling tears and her heart filled with anguish, stood unsteadily where her hero husband was executed. Pei Xia Chen, with her slain spouse’s parents and six other relatives, made a heartbreaking pilgrimage on Wednesday to the Brooklyn block that became a weekend killing ground. Gut-wrenching moans of disbelief broke the eerie silence in Bedford-Stuyvesant before Chen knelt at the street memorial honoring her spouse Wenjian Liu, 32, and his NYPD partner Officer Rafael Ramos, 40.
The son of Officer Rafael Ramos also spoke to the press: