DeBlasio doesn't care what white folks think

From the NY Post:

Sadly, the political calculation includes a racial element. Because de Blasio believes he owes his election to Al Sharpton and nonwhite voters, he often asserts that “I don’t need whites to win,” an insider tells me.

It’s a reprehensible attitude that reflects a divide-and-conquer strategy waged along race and class fault lines. Unfortunately, the mayor’s assumption may be right.

Taking into account changing demographics and the city’s lopsided liberalism, along with his care and feeding of the unions, the mayor could be invincible from his right.

The only obvious danger in 2017 is that he would be outflanked on the left. Seen that way, keeping Sharpton and the unions inside the tent goes a long way toward securing his re-election, and, therefore, it matters most.

The downside to the mayor’s litmus tests are obvious everywhere. Broad measurements of the quality of life show that most New Yorkers see it declining, and fear it is growing steadily worse. A gloomy view of the future, then, will be a defining characteristic of the next two years.

Unless de Blasio changes course. For that to happen, he’ll probably need to conclude that he’ll be a one-termer otherwise.

But even facing defeat, I’m not sure he would be able to change. The amiable back-bencher of years past is drunk with power and so comfortable in his bubble that he probably believes his own hyperbole about what great things he is doing and that he is important nationally. He seems ready to sacrifice incremental progress for wild-eyed fantasies of a socialist Utopia.

In that case, buckle up, New York. Life is likely to get much worse before it gets better.

Nothing says "progressive" like a 5th Avenue fundraiser

From the Observer:

A slew of progressive pols will hold a fundraiser next week for Rebecca Lynch, a top candidate to replace Mark Weprin in the City Council.

Bronx State Senator Gustavo Rivera, Queens Assemblywoman Nily Rozic and four council members–Corey Johnson of Manhattan, Ritchie Torres of the Bronx, Brad Lander of Brooklyn and Jimmy Van Bramer of Queens–are set to fundraise for Ms. Lynch at the swanky Plaza Hotel, according to a Facebook invitation. The August 12 fundraiser is asking for donations between $75 and $300. Renee Cafaro, a Democratic consultant, is also co-hosting the event.

“Rebecca is thrilled to have the support of a longtime progressive activist who has held fundraisers for leading candidates throughout the country like Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Comptroller Scott Stringer, Assemblywoman Nily Rozic and others,” said Sally Frank, Ms. Lynch’s campaign manager, referring to Ms. Cafaro.

The four council members are part of the Progressive Caucus, a bloc of 19 liberal council members that has a great deal of clout in the body. The liberals endorsed Ms. Lynch, a former City Hall staffer and Democratic district leader, last Friday.

A city run by radicals

From City Journal:

Even by the standards of New York City politics, Mark-Viverito stands on the left-wing fringe. During her first seven years on the council, she stood for, but did not recite, the Pledge of Allegiance. (Her spokesperson claimed that, having grown up in Puerto Rico, Mark-Viverito was “unfamiliar” with the one-sentence pledge.) In 2010, the future speaker circulated a petition calling for the release of Oscar López Rivera, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his leadership role in FALN, the Puerto Rican paramilitary group that bombed Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan, among other targets, in the 1970s. Mark-Viverito counts among her friends Evo Morales, the socialist president of Bolivia, whom she visited in 2008. She also participated in the protest movement to expel the U.S. Navy from Vieques in Puerto Rico, where she was arrested, along with other prominent progressives such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Al Sharpton. Mark-Viverito’s family owns a 12-acre estate abutting the former Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, from which the Naval Forces Southern Command oversaw the controversial bombing tests. Perhaps the council speaker enjoyed sunbathing in peace.

New York City Democratic politics are largely shaped by organized labor. Almost every liberal leader in New York City—including the mayor and city council speaker—owes some measure of allegiance to the radical-leftist Working Families Party, which grew out of an alliance between labor unions and activist groups, such as the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn), which applied the union-organizing model to public housing complexes. WFP-backed candidates (like Mark-Viverito) are usually endorsed by the city’s most powerful unions: 1199 SEIU, which represents health-care and hospital workers; 32BJ, a union for property-service workers; the Transit Workers Union Local 100; and the United Federation of Teachers, which represents New York City’s public school teachers. Mark-Viverito worked as an organizer for 1199, and the powerful union steered her to move to East Harlem to seek political office there.

The WFP runs pro-labor candidates with the goal of forcing mainstream Democrats and incumbents further left. Though it has national aspirations, the party thrives mainly in New York, where “fusion” voting rules allow candidates to seek office on multiple ballot lines. In 2010, a group of WFP-backed council members, led by Mark-Viverito and Brad Lander—who succeeded de Blasio in his Park Slope district after the future mayor became public advocate—formed the Progressive Caucus. Including Mark-Viverito as speaker, the caucus, with 18 seats, now makes up more than one-third of the 51-member council and dominates the council politically, holding all leadership posts and most key committee chairmanships. Its members are unremittingly left-wing.

The entire thing is worth a read to understand just what a bunch of loons are running city hall these days.

We're gettin' gouged

From Crains:

New York City has not changed its real estate tax rate in years, but soaring property values are sending the dollar volume of the money collected skyward. One has to wonder how long before a property tax revolt takes hold in the city.

The accompanying chart tracks the past 10 years of property tax collections and the de Blasio administration's projections for the next four years. All are for the city's fiscal year that ends June 30.

Doesn't it say something that the most liberal mayor and City Council in the past 35 years have little interest in this issue?

Poverty pimps

From the NY Post:

Today, compassion fuels the American political bus. No one can expect to lead the country without proving that he or she feels our pain.

That is a fatuous basis for policy, notes political scholar William Voegeli in a calm and reasoned book that carries the impishly inflammatory title, “The Pity Party: A Mean-Spirited Diatribe Against Liberal Compassion.”

Compassion creates a co-dependency between the empathizers and the empathizees: Liberalism is an “alliance of experts and victims,” in the words of Harvard’s Harvey Mansfield.

To top that up to 51% of the voters, says Voegeli, liberals argue that “those who do not recognize the expertise of the experts are stupid, preferring ignorance, and those who do not recognize the victimhood of the victims are wicked, lacking compassion.”

If the empathizees ever disappeared (by, say, having their miseries extinguished) then the empathizers would lose their purpose, the soothing soul balm of caring.

That’s why, no matter how much money gets poured into poverty alleviation ($22 trillion, not including Social Security or Medicare, in the last 50 years), “You will never hear the words “Phew! We cured poverty.”

Indeed, official poverty measures simply leave out anti-poverty benefits. That’s like saying you’re carless if you were forced to accept a Chevy paid for by other taxpayers.

So the poverty rate never really changes — it’s been around 14% or so for the last half-century — even as living standards for today’s poor surpass those of yesterday’s middle class.

Ah, but the poor are less healthy, argue liberals. True. But whose fault is that? Many avoidable illnesses that disproportionately afflict the poor are traceable to ill-advised consumption, not deprivation.

Tweeding simply explained!

"These are the people who make sure we get nothing but then turn around and have us to vote for them again."

Cuomo not fond of Melissa

From the NY Post:

Gov. Cuomo, in his first major battle with Bill de Blasio, is engaged in a last-ditch effort to block leftist Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito from becoming council speaker, Democratic insiders have told The Post.

Cuomo has been working behind the scenes with city Democratic leaders, including Assemblyman Carl Heastie, the Bronx party chair, and US Rep. Joseph Crowley, the Queens chair, to line up support for Councilman Dan Garodnick, the other candidate in the race, the insiders said.

“It’s clear to many of us that Cuomo and his people are working to stop Melissa because it’s not in his interest to have her in there,” said a prominent Democrat involved in the speakership battle.

“It’s certainly not in Cuomo’s political interest to have another left-wing activist along with de Blasio running the city. The sense is that Cuomo wants to see de Blasio defeated on this one, so that he’ll start off as mayor weaker and not stronger, relative to the governor.”

Added a longtime political observer close to the speakership fight, “The governor, who wants to run for president, doesn’t want to see the city turned into a People’s Republic of New York at the same time he’s trying to make the state at least look like it’s business friendly.”

Mayor-elect de Blasio, whose call for higher taxes on the wealthy already put him on a collision course with Cuomo — who wants tax cuts to boost his re-election — unexpectedly endorsed Mark-Viverito for speaker this month, angering Heastie, Crowley and other party leaders.

Leftie revolution coming soon

From the Daily News:

The City Council is about to take a sharp left turn.

Twenty-one new Council members are about to take office, and many of them are more liberal than the lawmakers they will replace — creating a tipping point, analysts say, in favor of a “progressive” agenda that has been bottled up for decades.

New Yorkers can expect everything from the expansion of workers’ rights to the imposition of new burdens on businesses.

“You have a wealth of young progressives who are going to be more aggressive than their predecessors,” said Councilman-elect Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx).

“And then you have a mayor who’s willing to partner with the City Council to advance progressive legislation.”

“All the stars are aligning in a progressive direction,” Torres said.

Some civic and political leaders are sounding the alarm.

“What concerns me is they’re certainly going to have agreement on the broader strokes, and I think they’re going to advance that agenda,” said outgoing Council Minority Leader James Oddo (R-Staten Island). “What’s to stop it?”

The push for fair election funding

From the NY Post:

Rich liberal actors are demanding that Albany use state money to help pay for political campaigns.

In interviews released yesterday by the Fair Elections for New York Campaign, Alec Baldwin, Kathleen Turner, Jason Alexander of “Seinfeld” and Kathryn Erbe of “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” urged lawmakers to pass campaign-finance reform before adjourning for the summer.

“I’m Alec Baldwin with a message for politicians in New York,” said Baldwin, who has toyed with the idea of running for mayor. “It’s time to stop talking about cleaning up Albany, and start doing it.”

Turner in her video says, “I can’t believe the stories I hear coming out of Albany today. State legislators patting each other down for wires . . . Isn’t that embarrassing?”

Actually, that wasn't state legislators. That was Vince Tabone who patted down an FBI informant, who actually was wearing a wire. And yes, that was very embarrassing. Mostly for Tabone.

Too much crime, not enough punishment

Editorial from the Daily News:

New York City is overrun by habitual criminals who are degrading the quality of life without fear of punishment, according to astounding new data.

The state Division of Criminal Justice Services reports that a whopping 8,824 mopes had been convicted of five or more misdemeanors within the three years that ended Dec. 31. Some 1,600 of them had 10 or more convictions in the same time frame and 169 had 20 or more.

These people must be stopped. They are stealing, dealing drugs, vandalizing property and cycling through the Criminal Court revolving door largely unpunished. New Yorkers are lucky if they are off the street for more than a couple of days.

Commissioner Sean Byrne started collecting the numbers to get prosecutors and judges to come down harder on repeat misdemeanor offenders. Good luck with that. It has never worked before and the max they would face in any case is a year in jail.

Only a get-tough law will do the trick.

The Legislature - including the soft-on-crime Democratic-controlled Assembly - must finally deem repeat misdemeanants eligible for treatment as felons.

Ideally, the law would bump a fourth misdemeanor conviction up to a felony with hard time. But this is too much for the Assembly to bear. Mayor Bloomberg has called for setting the standard at a seventh conviction and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance says he would happily settle for pegging it at eight or more serious misdemeanors in five years.

Enough is enough. Too many people are being victimized.