Too Oft Repeated ...

Locus: a press conference in downtown Gotham ...

Players: the very tall, dim-witted mayor, the state's somewhat shifty governor, and the too-loyal chief of police.

Now, the opening of the news conference: "As you all know I am the mayor of this city where a few short hours ago we suffered this gruesome tragedy. But first of all, we must say that our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of this apparently lone-wolf attack. We cannot yet classify this as terror even though the suspect was shouting something in Arabic when he exit his lethal vehicle ...which mowed down all these victims. We will name all the dead after their next of kin have been notified. It is also far to early to release the name of the assailant or describe his motivation which we don't yet understand ... but we want to caution everyone not to jump to conclusions and to lash out at those minorities assumed to be responsible. We want to commend our first responders for the heroism and professionalism in how they dealt with this horrific act. Remember everyone ... if you see something, say something ... blah blah blah ... blah blah ... blah blah blah ... blah.

The Big Rotting Apple

Decay from the Left

When will they ever learn? The left keeps returning to the same old failed policies … pander to municipal unions … pander to minorities … pander to limousine liberals ... increase handouts … raise taxes … lower vital services … line the pockets of your supporters … castigate, even punish social conservatives. Such is the case in New York City where the new over-whelming-elected mayor, Bill de Blasio, is hell bent on undoing much of the progress that mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg had so carefully made there over the last twenty years.

Now even a police union is recommending that the Democrat party not hold its 2016 convention in Brooklyn because of deteriorating conditions in Gotham. They say that the squeegee strong-arms are back, the aggressive panhandlers are back, street crime is on the rise, and police morale is in the tank … see: NY Times Story. Yes, the New York Times tries to ameliorate somewhat these union charges, but it is still clear that things are getting worse in the Big Apple.

Mayor de Blasio, since his election, has gone after charter schools (to appease the teachers union), deep-sixed the “stop and frisk” police policy (to belly-rub the race baiters), instituted a multi-hundred-million dollar pre-kindergarten program (to babysit toddlers), and reduced garbage pick-ups and snow removals in the upper East side (to punish those who didn’t vote for him).

Yes, those who are benefiting from these liberal shifts still like de Blasio … but, in a few years when it becomes self-evident how things have changed for the worse, some poor schlub Republican or Independent will have to come in as mayor and clean things up all over again (if New York City is so lucky).

The Three Rs

New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg has a lot on his mind these days … transfats, too much dietary salt, 16 ounce + soft drinks, open access to homeless shelters (see: Weekly Standard Story), etc.  But what he doesn’t seem to be too concerned about is that 80% of this City’s high-school children are graduated as being functionally illiterate … see: CBS Local Story … and this is just for the ones who graduate.  35% of high-school students there don’t even graduate (see: Gotham Schools Story).  This means that only 13% (20% of 65%) of students who enter high school in NYC (how many even even get this far?) can really read a fast-food menu. How can this be?  New York spends almost $19,000 per student (see: CBC NY Story ) to “educate” their students but with clearly catastrophic results (and they say we need to spend more money on education) … yet Gotham’s mayor seems distracted with all these other "vital" matters.

Supposedly the “rubber rooms” that were once used to warehouse incompetent teachers have been closed down … but this seems another teacher-union fiction (see: Huffington Post Story).  What has clearly happened is that past generations of uneducated students have been promoted to union-dues-paying teachers and the vicious cycle is ever continuing and worsening.  In my opinion, pretty nearly all the teachers in Gotham should be fired as a result of the above damaging statistics (or at least sent back to real schools to be truly educated).  I would also sh..tcan that billionaire Mayor who doesn’t understand where his priorities should be.

So, unfortunately, in New York City, the three Rs apparently stand for “Recess and Rubber Rooms.”