The luckiest man on the face of the earth

  

Impunity City

Finally. America fires Trump and she has a new president in former Senator and Vice President Joe Biden. Finally for Joe Biden, he has fulfilled his destiny following nearly 50 years of government service and after countless failures in his quest to be commander in chief in the last 30 (except in 2016 when he deferred to Manifest Hillary and stood down).

Uncle Joe’s road to the White House started off as rocky as a lunar landscape and ended up as smooth, protected and gilded like an award show red carpet.Normally if something like this happened to a regular Joe it would be considered a classic Comeback Story, but this is Political Establishment Joe. It sure helped when about 20 people decided to run with Joe in the primary and about half of them plus two billionaires would drop out simultaneously and endorse him, fulfilling the DNC collusion to destroy Bernie Sanders second run for president. Even Joe had no platform and no promises for people to give him their vote and he couldn’t even articulate what they were or even a complete sentence, he still was able to win a lot of states after Sanders narrow loss in Iowa and wins in Nevada and New Hampshire where Joe wound up near or at the bottom in the bottom of the vote tallies.

But when COVID-19 came, all bets were off. The states were primaries were held had low turnouts (even after the Biden campaign recklessly encouraged people to vote despite the risk of contagion) and the next primaries had to be rescheduled. Plus Sanders sappy performance at their last debate enabled Biden’s dominance at the polls in late Spring. While turning the nation and the primary election upside down, the novel virus managed to put Joe over the top and win the nomination with ease...

Judge orders presidential primary election back on, Bernie Sanders back on ballot

 NY Post

A federal court judge has ordered New York Democrats to reinstate the presidential primary election for June 23 after one-time candidate Andrew Yang challenged its cancellation.


Judge Analisa Torres in her decision Tuesday ruled that the New York Board of Elections’ decision to cancel the vote was unconstitutional and that all qualified candidates as of April 26 must be on the ballot.

“[T]he removal of presidential contenders from the primary ballot not only deprived those candidates of the chance to garner votes for the Democratic Party’s nomination,” Torres wrote in her opinion.
“…but also deprived their pledged delegates of the opportunity to run for a position where they could influence the party platform, vote on party governance issues, pressure the eventual nominee on matters of personnel or policy, and react to unexpected developments at the Convention.”

Yang sued the New York State Board of Elections last week, claiming the cancellation “fundamentally denie[d] [voters] the right to choose our next candidate for the office of President of the United States.”

Arthur Schwartz, an attorney for plaintiffs in the case, called the decision an “extraordinary victory for the democratic process.”

“This decision is not a win for Andrew Yang or Bernie Sanders. It is a win for democracy,” Schwartz said in a statement. “And it is also a warning to President Trump not to mess around with our right to vote him out in November.”

New York Board of Elections cancels democracy

PIXNews and Gothamist

New York has canceled its Democratic presidential primary originally scheduled for June 23 amid the coronavirus epidemic in an unprecedented move.

The Democratic members of the State's Board of Elections voted Monday to nix the primary.
New York will still hold its congressional and state-level primaries on June 23.

The NYS Board of Elections canceled the contest, in part, because Senator Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the race.

In a statement released on Twitter, the Sanders campaign calls it an “outrage” and a “blow to American democracy.”

When asked if canceling the Democratic primary in New York was “the right move,” Cuomo said during this press conference Monday that he wasn’t going to second guess the Board of Elections

“I know there are a lot of election employees — employees at Board of Elections — who are nervous about conducting elections, but I’ll leave it up to the Board of Elections," he said.

The cancelation generated swift backlash from Sanders supporters and others.

“What happened today is New York’s Democratic Party sent a clear message to Progressives that our voices and our values do not matter,” said Sochie Nnaemeka, state director of the Working Families Party.

She said this takes away people's right to vote for Sanders and allow New York’s voters to send progressive delegates to the convention. 

 Citing COVID-19 health risks to the public and Board staff who would have had to prepare for the election, the state’s two Democratic Commissioners both voted to suspend the contest. Co-chair
Douglas Kellner and Andrew Spano, said the decision was difficult, especially given the “thousands” of emails from Sanders supporters pushing them to keep it. But they noted that a newly passed provision in state election law allowed the body to remove presidential candidates from the ballot if they had suspended their campaign.

“Senator Sanders not only announced he suspended his campaign, but he also announced a public endorsement of Joe Biden,” Kellner said adding, “What the Sanders supporters want is essentially a beauty contest that given the situation with the public health emergency that exists now seems to be unnecessary and indeed frivolous.”

Spano, the former Westchester County Executive, said he just made his mind up this morning. 

Foremost in his mind was the health of Board staff who would be running the election. But he also talked about seeing people sickened after casting ballots in primaries across the country.

“Looking at the situation in Wisconsin and seeing those people on the lines, and having been myself locked up in here, trying to avoid getting any kind of contagion, I've come to the conclusion that we should minimize the number of people on the ballot, minimize the election for the protection of everybody, but give the opportunity to vote in the actual elections for candidates and not have anyone on the ballot just for the purposes of issues at a convention,” said Spano.

Derelict Mayor Bill de Blasio ditches the city and blows off his civic duties to go to Iowa and other "kinda primary" states

de Blasio and his only endorsement.

NY Daily News

Mayor de Blasio is headed back to Iowa.

Hizzoner — who has not ruled out a run for president in 2020 — will visit the home of the first presidential caucus this weekend, two sources confirmed to the Daily News.

That comes after he had to scuttle a trip to New Hampshire, home to the first presidential primary, that had been scheduled for last weekend. The trip was called off due to the tragic death of a Detective Brian Simonsen in a friendly fire incident.

he mayor will speak to the Asian & Latino Coalition in Des Moines on Sunday, according to the Des Moines Register.

He was last in Iowa in December of 2017 — when he spoke at the holiday dinner of political group Progress Iowa. Prior to that, he visited the state to stump for Hillary Clinton, but was relegated to knocking on doors and never crossed paths with the candidate.

 Asked by The News whether anyone ever does urge him to run for president, de Blasio at first bristled: "I’m not going to try and fall into the trap of the question.”

He said when he had more to say on the topic, he would — but said plenty of New Yorkers have urged him on.

"I get a lot of encouragement from people. I know it may be hard to believe, after we've talked about placard abuse and the anger and frustration that New Yorkers feel on that issue broadly. But every day I have New Yorkers come up and talk about different things the administration is doing that they like, and plenty of people who urge me on for the future,” he said.

 As everyone who reads a newspaper, watches television, and has a frickin' cellphone knows; Bernie Sanders just announced his candidacy a few days ago. He is currently second in the polls behind Biden, jumped ahead of the corporate news media hyped Kamala Harris and has raised millions in just 48 hours. So the progressive candidate is already established and continuing this exploratory run is purely mental.

This is pure speculation, but it looks like Da Mayor is looking to ditch town after the public advocate election.


 

Queens College president paid to not live in school's mansion

From the NY Post:

Queens College has let a historic $2.5 million waterfront mansion with sweeping views of Little Neck Bay stand empty for three years after its current president chose to live in his Westchester home while getting a $5,000 monthly housing allowance.

While Felix Matos Rodriguez collects $60,000 a year to live in his own house, the CUNY-owned Douglaston manse collects dust, used only sporadically for college functions.

Inaugural bible came from Queens church

From CBS:

Something President Donald Trump has held onto for decades was with him as he took the oath of office on Friday.

It came from Jamaica, Queens when he was a young boy.

As CBS2’s Erin Logan reported, there’s one bible that President Trump has referred back to since he got it from a Jamaica, Queens church in 1955.

“He had it with him. He showed me the copy,” Rev. Patrick Hugh O’Connor said.

The president had it with him while he was sworn in as the nation’s 45th president. Rev. O’Connor — of the 325-year-old Presbyterian church — said he heard all about the bible that the president got while in Sunday school. The two met for the first time in person on Wednesday at Trump’s office.

“He shared how fundamental his time at the church was,” O’Connor said.

Not only was the reverend impressed that President Trump kept the bible from the church for over 60 years, he’s also happy to hear that someone from the church made such an impact on him.

“The Sunday school teacher who is now 96-years-old, who had helped to shape his journey,” O’Connor said.

He even had a letter for her.

“The letter said simply to her, ‘thank you very much for your support,” he said.

The reverend described his meeting with the president as pleasant. The main purpose was to pray with him as he took on the most powerful role.

Our next president comes from Queens

Holy cow. Watch out, world.

What idiots came up with this?

From Gotham Gazette:

As New Yorkers begin a year of many voting opportunities, there are important questions that elections will help answer - like who the next U.S. President will be and which party will control the state Senate - but also concern about voter fatigue and thus, turnout.

There will be at least four chances for New Yorkers to cast votes in 2016, with three different primary election days leading up to November’s general election. There will be a presidential primary vote in April; congressional primaries in June; and state legislative primaries in September. There will also be special elections sprinkled in to fill empty seats in the state Assembly and Senate.

On April 19, New Yorkers will vote in their party primaries for president; on June 28, it will be primaries for all 27 New York members of the House of Representatives, with Senator Chuck Schumer on the ballot, too; and on September 13, primaries for all 63 seats of the State Senate and all 150 seats of the State Assembly.

No date has been set by the governor yet for special elections in the state legislature, including those to replace former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, whose 2015 corruption convictions created vacancies.

In 2015, some New York City voters cast ballots for new district attorneys, judges, and city Council members, among others. By the time New Yorkers vote for president in November, it could be their sixth trip to the polls in 14 months.

Today is not about every president

From George the Atheist's blog:

Here is the actual copy of the so-called Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 and . . .

. . . please note it clearly states that the third Monday in February is Washington's Birthday. Not a "Presidents/Presidents'/President's" Day as commercial interests and ignorant boobs have recently called it. [They can't even get the existence and placement of the apostrophe in their misnomer correct!]

So Publisher/Editor Tony Barsamian of the Queens Gazette, you have contributed to the denigration of the Father of Our Country, the Great Washington, for which this Monday's holiday is dedicated. You are grievously mistaken that we are to commemorate every Tom, Dick, and Harry President that has come down the pike.

You can vote anywhere, but there's a catch

From the Village Voice:

"Just because you're displaced doesn't mean you're disenfranchised."

It's evident that, a week after Sandy, thousands of New Yorkers are still reeling from her aftermath, many of them without homes, power or, particularly on Election Day, the ability to get anywhere near their assigned polling station. Although the plight of the displaced might be prioritized over casting a ballot, the threat of missing hundreds, if not thousands, of votes has become a major issue here, in New Jersey and in the rest of the Sandy-stricken states.

For this reason, Governor Cuomo, in a statement that included the line above, declared a measure that would allow all New Yorkers to vote from anywhere in the state. But, there's a stipulation: you can only vote for the President and Senate from a different location; you cannot vote for your local elections if you're not in your own district.

Today, any displaced voter in New York can walk into a polling station, sign an affidavit and choose the next President and Senator from New York. According to Cuomo, this was an "extraordinary" but necessary compromise: "We want everyone to vote... But in the local races, if you vote in a different Assembly district, a different Senate district, your vote will not count in that district. That is the downside to the system."

So, if you want your vote to actually mean something, find a polling site in your assembly district.