NY Times loses $40 million last year

Heh.

It couldn’t be the quality of their newspaper, or lack thereof, now could it?  Nah.

Of course, since B.O. is good about doling out money to his constituents, and since Democrats have floated the idea of bailing out friendly fishwraps before, it seems like the Old Gray Hag should go kneel before Chairman Zero and ask for their own bailout.  No sense parroting his talking points and polishing his knob for free, right?  There’s bills to be paid.

OWS now terrorizing children

You scumbags MUST be proud!  Real tough, #sshats.  Excerpt:

In the middle of thousands of protestors yelling and chanting — some kicking and screaming – CBS 2’s Emily Smith found little school kids trying to get to class. Nervous parents led them through the barriers on Wall Street. The NYPD helped funnel the children, anything to ease their fears while some protestors chanted “follow those kids!”

“These guys are terrorists, yelling at little kids,” one father said.

“For them it’s horrible. They’re afraid of all the crowds. We’re not even able to get through. They’re just, he’s … very afraid now,” a mother added.

Bloomberg, you are about as useful as boobs on a boar, pal.

But hey: They are the 99%, right?  Because 99% of this country terrorizes children on their way to school, I guess.

Court to Occupy Wall Street miscreants: You can’t camp in Zucotti Park anymore!

Score a victory for public health and private property!  Details:

Finally. Common sense and decency — not to mention ordinary rules of sanitation — reign downtown.

For two months, the lunatics had taken over the asylum, as if the right to use a park as a public outhouse was in the Constitution.

But yesterday, in a display of courage I didn’t think he possessed, the mayor got it.

He ordered the cleansing of festering Zuccotti Park.

Sexual assault, rape, thievery and the scamming of gullible people into donating their hard-earned cash for nefarious purposes — including the possible purchase of drugs — had become not the exception but the norm at the Occupy Wall Street enclave. For weeks.

Yesterday evening, Supreme Court Judge Michael Stallman proved he got it, too. He upheld the ban on tents, bedrolls and all manner of paraphernalia there.

It will no longer be easy for the Occupiers to occupy. Not if they don’t want to catch pneumonia or tuberculosis, which has broken out at Occupy Atlanta. … 

More:

A judge ruled Tuesday that the protesters could return to Zuccotti but could not set up camp with equipment that the city said created numerous hazards. Police raided the site early Tuesday morning and confiscated much of their camping gear.

…

Protesters were allowed back into Zuccotti Park Tuesday evening but were banned from bringing tents, tarps, generators and camping equipment after a judge sided with the city following a surprise overnight raid of the Occupy Wall Street headquarters.

“Individuals who attempt to enter the park carrying these items may be refused entry,” an NYPD chief bellowed through a bullhorn as several hundred demonstrators filed back into the plaza after a tumultuous day.

The key component of the ruling (PDF):

The parties dispute whether the First Amendment applies to the actions of the owner in enacting the rules. For purposes of this application, the Court assumes that the First Amendment applies to the owner of Zuccotti Park, thus obviating petitioners’ request for a hearing as to whether Zuccotti Park is traditional public forum, or a limited public forum. Assuming arguendo, that the owner’s maintenance of the space must not violate the First Amendment, the owner has the right to adopt reasonable rules that permit iUo maintain a clean, safe, publicly accessible space consonant with the responsibility it assumed to provide public access according to law.

The Court is mindful of movants’ First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and peaceable assembly. However, “[e]ven protected speech is not equally permissible in all places and at all times.” (Snyder v Phelps, 131 S Ct 1207, 1218 [2011], quoting Cornelius v NAACP Legal Defense
& Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 US 788, 799 [1985].) Here, movants have not demonstrated that the rules adopted by the owners of the property, concededly after the demonstrations began, are not reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions permitted under the First Amendment.

To the extent that City law prohibits the erection of structures, the use of gas or other combustible materials, and the accumulation of garbage and human waste in public places, enforcement of the law and the owner’s rules appears reasonable to permit the owner to maintain its space in a hygienic, safe, and lawful condition, and to prevent it from being liable by the City or others for violations of law, or in tort It also permits public access by those who live and work in the area who are the intended beneficiaries of this zoning bonus.

Contrary to what these smelly, disease-ridden, filthy, unemployable savages stated, you do NOT have a constitutional right to set up camp on private property and use it as a community commode.  Kudos to the judge for getting this right.

Occupy Wall Street miscreants crapping on doorsteps of residents

Not just cop cars, mind you, as if that weren’t bad enough.  No, now these vermin are defecating everywhere other than toilets.  From JWF:

Infuriated lower Manhattan residents went ballistic on Zuccotti Park protesters at a chaotic Community Board 1 meeting tonight while blasting politicians for allowing the siege to continue without any end in sight.

“They are defecating on our doorsteps,” fumed Katherine Hughes, a stay at home mom who has the misfortune of living one block from the chaos. “A lot of people are very frustrated. A lot of people are concerned about the safety of our kids.”

Fed up homeowners said that they’ve been subjected to insults and harassment as they trek to their jobs each morning. “The protesters taunt people who are on their way to work,” said James Fernandez, 51, whose apartment overlooks the park.  (Because work is for suckers, right? – CL)

Remember: these are the scumbags to whom Obama says “we are on [your] side!“

DNC Chair Schultz: We lost “a very difficult district” in NY-09

Weiner’s seat went to Republican Bob Turner in last night’s special election.  So how did Debbie What’sHerName Schmuck explain it away?  This is how:

Democratic party leaders insisted the loss wasn’t a harbinger of things to come. “It’s a very difficult district for Democrats,” said Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, noting its Democratic margins there tend to be the second lowest of all the districts in New York City.

If, by a “very difficult district”, she means a district that hasn’t sent a Republican to the House since 1922, then yeah.  Then again, maybe she meant that it is a very difficult district FROM NOW ON, thanks to Chairman Zero’s policies?  😆

By the way, how’s this for a kneeslapper?  Remember when Democrats Bill Owens (NY-23) and Kathy Hocul (NY-26) won traditionally safe red districts, Pelosi et al told us that it was a repudiation of Republican policies.  Now that a seat that has been blue since the Harding administration has flipped red, suddenyl we’re hearing “Nah, this was a local race, not a referendum on Obama or liberal policies.”  If only that were true.

Myopia’s not very attractive on you, Mrs. Hyphen-Democrat.

Weiner’s district in danger of flipping in special election?

A district that would send a leftist #sshat like disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner to D.C. is, to quote Captain Obvious, a little left of center.  It was assumed to fall easily into Democrat hands after Weinergate prompted the resignation.

Well, the seat is actually in danger of flipping red in a special election.  Details:

For Democrats who hadn’t already started to panic over Tuesday’s special election in New York’s Brooklyn- and Queens-based 9th Congressional district, now would be a good time to start.

Republican Bob Turner led Democrat David Weprin by 6 points in the nonpartisan Siena College poll released this morning.

The nonpartisan survey conducted Tuesday through late Thursday found 50 percent of those polled would vote for Turner if the election were held “today” while 44 percent would vote for Weprin. Six percent of the 886 likely voters polled said they were undecided.

The numbers have flipped from a Siena poll a month ago, when Weprin had a 6-point lead. …

The seat may very well remain blue, and even if it flips red now, it will almost certainly revert to blue form next November.  That said, it is hilarious to see the Dems dropping a half mill on a race that shouldn’t even be competitive.  Such is the plight of the donks these days!  😆

Night and Day, “Bloomberg’s definition of nanny state NYC” edition

NYC mayor Bloomberg on why gay marriage in NY is a good thing:

In voicing his support for same-sex marriage, Mayor Bloomberg has mentioned — and appeared with — his niece Rachel, who is lesbian. “It brings it home,” he told me on the phone this week, though he added that beyond his desire for her to have everything she wants in life, “Government should not tell you what to do unless there’s a compelling public purpose.” He sees no such purpose in blocking same-sex marriage.

Always the supporter of individual liberty, that Bloomberg!  Some of the “compelling public purposes” with which Bloomberg thinks that NYC should concern itself:

Banning things, or trying to, is what the [NYC] council does best.

Here’s the list from 2006.

• Trans-fats.
• Aluminum baseball bats.
• The purchase of tobacco by 18- to 20-year-olds.
• Foie gras.
• Pedicabs in parks.
• New fast-food restaurants (but only in poor neighborhoods).
• Lobbyists from the floor of council chambers.
• Lobbying city agencies after working at the same agency.
• Vehicles in Central and Prospect parks.
• Cell phones in upscale restaurants.
• The sale of pork products made in a processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., because of a unionization dispute.
• Mail-order pharmaceutical plans.
• Candy-flavored cigarettes.
• Gas-station operators adjusting prices more than once daily.
• Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
• Wal-Mart.

More:

If you had to think of one city on earth where the rulers should not try to impose a standard of ‘good behaviour’, it would surely be New York. Who in their right mind would seek to sanitise this concrete jungle, to sedate the city that never sleeps, to demand conformism and obedience from the inhabitants of a place which, in the words of a popular tourist T-shirt, is known as ‘New York F**kin’ City’?

You’d be surprised. New York is currently governed by a gaggle of health-obsessed bigwigs who believe they have a duty to grab New Yorkers by the scruffs of their outsized necks and drag them towards lives of bicycle-riding, non-smoking, booze-avoiding, fruit-snacking conformity. City Hall, under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is awash with that new breed of psycho-politician known as the ‘nudger’, who believes that he has the right to use psychological techniques and brute censorship to manipulate and ‘improve’ human behaviour.

The Bloombergers have become world-beaters in the banning of public smoking and the demonisation of junk food. It is testament to their successful colonisation of these islands that the banning of smoking in all public parks, pedestrian plazas and beaches passed without incident, and even without much angry commentary, on 24 May. Under the Smoke Free Air Act (it is clever, in an Orwellian kind of way, to use the word ‘free’ in an act of law that diminishes freedom), New Yorkers can no longer light up in Central Park, Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Promenade, the Coney Island concrete walk or even Times Square, that flashing, noisy advertisers’ paradise where you can still watch naked cowboys play guitar and buy Sarah Palin condoms from streetsellers — so long as you don’t puff on a ciggie at the same time. ‘Where can I smoke now?’ one New Yorker said to a newspaper. ‘In an underground fortress of shame?’

…

Not content with policing what New Yorkers puff, the Bloombergers want to control what they scoff, too. City Hall banned the frying of food in transfats in all restaurants in 2007, which was bad news for those of us for whom half the attraction of visiting NYC was to tuck into the deliciously unhealthy fare served up in its diners. And in 2008, the city forced all chain restaurants and foodsellers to publish the calorific information of their food, in the same-sized font as the label for the food itself. Walking down Fifth Avenue, I saw a huge poster in a Burger King window advertising two burgers for the price of one, alongside an equally huge notice saying: ‘1320 CALORIES.’ Even the temporary stalls that hawk hot dogs and ice-cream in Central Park and elsewhere display calorific facts. That salted pretzel you buy as you stroll back to your hotel (‘500 CALORIES’) now comes with a side order of inner turmoil and gym fantasies.

So, if you’re a homosexual in great shape who wants to wed his beau, NYC wants to “live and let live” with you.  If you’re an overweight straight guy who wants to buy cigs and HoHos from Wal Mart, you can look forward to the heavy hand of Nanny York City crushing you…for your own good and for the “compelling public purpose” of New Yorkers.

CNN and Democrats (but I repeat myself) turn bin Laden death into political attack on Bush

Well, that didn’t take long, now did it?  From Radio Vice Online:

A magnificent mission of the four-door Navy SEALs, and it took plenty of guts on the part of this president to pull the trigger on this one. But it certainly didn’t take long for the left stream media to take a shot at President Bush. Make no mistake this is a great accomplishment for the young president. But let’s not forget the groundwork and intelligence was laid by the Bush administration. Still, CNN and Democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman couldn’t resist the moment. Video below the fold.

The first video is a clip from last night CNN coverage. Wolf Blitzer is interviewing former Bush administration official Fran Townsend. He gets everything off to a good start by rubbing Townsend’s nose in it. Nice job Wolf. Oh and about the 1 min. mark, notice a comment that bleeds into the on-air broadcast. I’ve listened to this about 10 times and it sure sounds like a CNN producer, who apparently doesn’t know his Mike is feeding into the production, seems to drop a nice expletive deleted on Ms. Townsend.  You tell me. Either way, nice job CNN.

Video at the link.

You know, this is supposed to be great news for America…right?  But I guess it’s to be expected.  I mean, if Democrats don’t know how to act in mourning (see Paul Wellstone and Coretta Scott King funerals), then it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they don’t know how to act in celebration, either.  Interesting, though, that the left is all about giving more props to Obama (who merely said “Yeah, go ahead” and didn’t vote “Present” for once) than the intel community and Navy SEALs who pulled this off.

NY Dem: Republicans want to “kill women”, or something

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), she of the “deem and pass” fame, said that Republicans came to DC to “kill women“.  This will no doubt come as a huge shock to all Republican female Congresswomen, who didn’t realize they were going to DC to commit suicide.

She also compared Republican efforts to curb infanticide with Nazis.  In Slaughterville, the Nazi-like barbarism isn’t the killing of babies, but depriving women of taxpayer funds at the federal level to subsidize the infanticide.

Moron.

Weiner (D-NY): Say, how’s about an ObamaCare waiver for my constituents in NYC?

Deranged Congressman Anthony Weiner, a man who is in serious need of anger management classes, tries to defend requesting a waiver from the very legislation for which he so passionately fought in 2009.  Open mouth and insert foot, Congressman Schlong:

Rep. Anthony Weiner said Wednesday he was looking into how a health law waiver might work for New York City.

Weiner, who is likely to run for mayor of New York, said that because of the city’s special health care infrastructure, his office was looking into alternatives that might make more sense. Weiner is one of the health care law’s biggest supporters; during the debate leading up to reform, he was one of the last holdouts in Congress for the public option.

“The president said, ‘If you have better ideas that can accomplish the same thing, go for it,’” said Weiner. “I’m in the process now of trying to see if we can take [President Barack Obama] up on it in the city of New York, … and I’m taking a look at all of the money we spend in Medicaid and Medicare and maybe New York City can come up with a better plan.”
…
The congressman was trying to debunk Republican “myths” about the health care law during a speech at the Center for American Progress. He used the waivers as way to describe how flexible the law actually is and how “this notion that the government is shoving the bill down people’s throats” is not true.

“The administration needs to make this argument more forcefully,” he said. “A lot of people who got waivers were … people who are our friends.”

“Our friends”…you know, it really does pay to be an FOB (Friend Of Barack), doesn’t it.  By logical extension, apparently the rest of America that resides outside of his district are enemies, right?

Typical liberal: Good enough for thee, but not for me!

Breaking news: Some Republican Congressman you’ve never heard of resigns over being an adulterous lout

Rep. Chris Lee (R-NY) is married and has kids.  He didn’t let that get in the way of hitting up women on Craigslist and sending them shirtless photos of himself.

Apparently, Boehner told him to hit the bricks, so yeserday afternoon, Lee obliged.  His seat is now vacant in NY-26, but that seat has sent a Republican nearly every time since the Civil War.  So hopefully, the state GOP (or local chapters) can find someone without such “quirks” and much less baggage.  If there’s any silver lining, at least he didn’t go full Favre here, right?

Seriously, though, good riddance to Lee.  Hopefully, he can patch things up with his family and minimize the emotional carnage that this has surely leveled on his wife.

Bill Clinton just called to say that Lee’s behavior is appalling.

Rangel guilty on 11 of 13 House ethics violations

“House ethics” strikes me as an oxymoron, but here you have it.  The Democrat-controlled House Ethics Committee found Charlie Rangel (D-Harlem) guilty.  I doubt any punishment will result, other than the loss of his chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Hmmm?  What’s that?  Oh, that’s right!  He’s losing his chair anyway, on account of the GOP House takeover in a couple of  months.  😆

Exit question: Why do Democrats hate black people?

Pelosi: Hey, let’s investigate those who oppose building of Ground Zero mosque!

Pe-loco: The First Amendment is soooooo 1787!  Details:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, called for an investigation of those who are protesting the building of the Ground Zero Mosque on Tuesday. She told San Francisco’s KCBS radio:

AUDIO

“There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded,” she said. “How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we’ve been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City.”

San Fransicko, you MUST be proud!

Exit question: So is she advocating investigating Harry Reid?

Night and Day, “Obama’s support for Ground Zero mosque” edition

Prez Kick#ss on Friday:

President Barack Obama’s decision to make public comments Friday that further stoked an already brewing controversy over the construction of a mosque near ground zero was “purely” his own, an administration official said Saturday.

B.O. the next day:

“In this country we treat everybody equally and in accordance with the law, regardless of race, regardless of religion. I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.”

And then after the pullback, he pulled back the pullback:

An administration official said Obama didn’t change his position on the mosque from Friday to Saturday. Obama believes it’s his job to uphold a fundamental piece of the Constitution that everyone be treated equally under the law, the official said.

The president believes it was appropriate for the board in Manhattan to approve the project near ground zero, the official said, and he was “absolutely not” walking back his remarks from Friday.

“The fair thing to do was to allow this to go forward,” the official said.

So the Community Organizer-in-Chief thought it would be a fine idea to weigh in on the legal right to build a mosque at Ground Zero (a right that few people are arguing), and only the legal right?  I don’t think anyone was talking about the legal right, but the morality or wisdom of building a mosque at a site where 3,000 Americans were slaughtered by nutjobs of the religion that will be commemorated by this mosque.  Besides, no one thinks he was merely speaking of the legal right, but that he was giving an outright endorsement of the idea (his denials to the contrary notwithstanding).  As Jon at Exurban League tweets: “Obama’s statement last night ticked off 70% of the country. His ‘clarification’ today has ticked off the other 30%.”

The Dems are already slated to take a beating in November, and this can’t possibly help.

Clinton and his Weiner in wedded bliss

Obviously I am not referring to Bubba’s partnership with Shrillary, since we all know there’s as much passionate love between those two as there is between Rosie O’Donnell and a Stairmaster.  No, here‘s what I’m talking about:

Bill Clinton is not giving away his daughter Chelsea’s hand in marriage for another three weeks. But he is going to get a little practice at the altar on Saturday, when he officiates at the wedding of Representative Anthony D. Weiner and Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The ceremony will be at Oheka Castle in Huntington, N.Y., in the early evening.

Matt McKenna, a Clinton spokesman, told The Associated Press that Mr. Clinton would conduct the ceremony and was authorized to do so, but did not elaborate. Aides to Mr. Weiner, who represents Queens and Brooklyn, declined to comment.

I can only imagine the awkward silence and tongue-biting when Bubba got to the “forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live” part.

Clinton…Weiner…sometimes, these stories just write themselves!  😆

Obama administration’s response to Times Square bombing plot? Why, cut terrorism funding for NYC, of course!

Face, meet palm.  D’oh!

President Obama arrives in lower Manhattan Thursday afternoon to thank the NYPD for its heroic in an attempted Times Square bomb – but the photo-op may not go according to plan.

The Department of Homeland Security told congressional officials Wednesday that it’s moving to make cuts in anti-terror funding to New York City, less than two weeks after cops helped thwart and attempted car bombing in Times Square – an effort the White House has since pinned on the Pakistani Taliban. 

The cuts, lawmakers were told, amount to about 25 percent for port security, and another 27 percent for transit security, according to several reports.

It “just makes no sense at all, particularly in light of recent events,” Sen. Charles Schumer told cable station NY1’s “Inside City Hall.” “The worst nightmare we probably face is some kind nuclear device placed in a container in the ship in the harbor and exploding….we need all the help we can get.”

How’s about a little of that “liberal nuance” we all know and love?

DHS insisted there was more nuance than being described by some officials, and that there are actually additions to other programs that even out the apparent cuts.

Exit prediction (and not of the “going out on a limb” variety): Those dolts in NYC will still vote for this vermin come 2012.

MSNBC and NYC mayor Bloomberg: You mean the Times Square bomber WASN’T a rabid teabagger?

MSNBC and both of their viewers are bummed that the Times Square bomber is a bloodthirsty camelhumping jihadist instead of a frothing Tea Partier.  Mayor Bloomberg, elected shortly after jihadists brought down the Twin Towers in his city, doesn’t seem to recall that event, opining that he too thought it must have been Tea Partiers ticked off about ObamaCare.

The AP?  They just fall back into reflexive and lazy mode…blaming Bush.  Seriously.

D#mned liberals are intent on using political correctness to destroy this country!

NYT: Now that ObamaCare is law, how about we tell you the bad side effects?

Would’ve been nice for the Old Gray Hag to inform her remaining readers of this stuff before they cheerleaded the bill to passage, no?  Excerpts:

New York’s insurance system has been a working laboratory for the core provision of the new federal health care law — insurance even for those who are already sick and facing huge medical bills — and an expensive lesson in unplanned consequences. Premiums for individual and small group policies have risen so high that state officials and patients’ advocates say that New York’s extensive insurance safety net for people like Ms. Welles is falling apart.

The problem stems in part from the state’s high medical costs and in part from its stringent requirements for insurance companies in the individual and small group market. In 1993, motivated by stories of suffering AIDS patients, the state became one of the first to require insurers to extend individual or small group coverage to anyone with pre-existing illnesses.

New York also became one of the few states that require insurers within each region of the state to charge the same rates for the same benefits, regardless of whether people are old or young, male or female, smokers or nonsmokers, high risk or low risk.

You mean charging everyone the exact same rates for different health needs, and requiring insurance companies to endure the heavy cost of covering someone with a pre-existing condition, results in staggeringly high rate increases?  Go figure.

Healthy people, in effect, began to subsidize people who needed more health care. The healthier customers soon discovered that the high premiums were not worth it and dropped out of the plans. The pool of insured people shrank to the point where many of them had high health care needs. Without healthier people to spread the risk, their premiums skyrocketed, a phenomenon known in the trade as the “adverse selection death spiral.”
…
The new federal health care law tries to avoid the death spiral (yeah, right! – Ed.) by requiring everyone to have insurance and penalizing those who do not, as well as offering subsidies to low-income customers. But analysts say that provision could prove meaningless if the government does not vigorously enforce the penalties, as insurance companies fear, or if too many people decide it is cheaper to pay the penalty and opt out.

Under the federal law, those who refuse coverage will have to pay an annual penalty of $695 per person, up to $2,085 per family, or 2.5 percent of their household income, whichever is greater. The penalty will be phased in from 2014 to 2016.

We’ve been saying that since the beginning.  I am rarely sick, averaging a trip to see the doctor for anything other than an annual physical exam about once every 3 – 4 years.  If my premiums get jacked up, I’m going to drop my health insurance.  I’ll pay any penalties, which would necessarily be lower than my premiums, until I get really sick…at which point I’ll go buy insurance and the companies can’t tell me “No”, thus raising everyone’s rates.  Once everyone else’s rates increase, then many of them will begin dropping their coverage, too, leaving fewer people in the pool and thus raising the rates on the saps who are still paying for their coverage.

This “premium increases – customer losses – premium increases” cycle will ultimately result in insurance companies going belly-up, i.e. the “death spiral.”  That is the goal of the left, despite their assertions to the contrary.  Once insurance companies all go out of business, then the feds will step in and fill the void with a single-payer government-run health insurance program.  Get ready for health care with the efficiency of the DMV and the compassion of the IRS.

The NYT could have educated folks before ObamaCare passed, but obviously, they were too busy trying to get B.O. a signature win on his otherwise worthless presidency.  Nope…no liberal media bias!

NY-23 not over?

I didn’t know a recount was going on in NY-23.  Story here, but here’s the lede:

Conservative Doug Hoffman conceded the race in the 23rd Congressional District last week after receiving two pieces of grim news for his campaign: He was down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night, and he had barely won his stronghold in Oswego County.

As it turns out, neither was true.

But Hoffman’s concession — based on snafus in Oswego County and elsewhere that left his vote undercounted — set off a chain of events that echoed all the way to Washington, D.C., and helped secure passage of a historic health care reform bill.

Democratic Rep. Bill Owens was quickly sworn into office on Friday, a day before the rare weekend vote in the House of Representatives. His support sealed his party’s narrow victory on the health care legislation.

Now a recanvassing in the 11-county district shows that Owens’ lead has narrowed to 3,026 votes over Hoffman, 66,698 to 63,672, according to the latest unofficial results from the state Board of Elections.

In Oswego County, where Hoffman was reported to lead by only 500 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted election night, inspectors found Hoffman actually won by 1,748 votes — 12,748 to 11,000.

The new vote totals mean the race will be decided by absentee ballots, of which about 10,200 were distributed, said John Conklin, communications director for the state Board of Elections. …

From what I’ve read elsewhere, the odds of Hoffman overcoming the deficit are not very good.  In all probability, he will still lose, only by a thinner margin.  Then again, we kept hearing during the Franken-Coleman recount how it was “nearly impossible” for Franken to overcome Coleman’s lead.  Although I don’t think ACORN was working on Hoffman’s campaign, so his odds just went down another notch.

Anywho, wouldn’t it be funny to see what would happen if Hoffman actually did overcome Owens, despite the fact that Owens has already been sworn in and quickly voted for PelosiCare?

After dropping out, Scozzafava endorses the Democrat for NY-23

Details here.

Well, well, well.  You know, those “crazy conservatives” may have been onto something when they said she was a RINO, huh?  I wonder if the former Carpetbagger Speaker of the House from GA who told us that “local leaders know better” is eating a plate of crow right now?  Yeah, Newt, those local leaders know so much about their local politics that they picked a candidate who is left of most Democrats and wound up endorsing the Democrat.  But what do we “outsiders” know, right?

By the way, her campaign manager is supporting the conservative, Doug Hoffman.

Awesome! Scozaafava quits NY-23 House race

Details here.  It seems that the national GOP, in a rare display of common sense, backed away from Scozzablahblah as the deluge of angry calls, e-mails, and returned empty donation envelopes poured in.  Recent polls continued to show her losing badly to both the Democrat and the Conservative, and I’m sure that had as much to do with the GOP jumping ship as anything, considering the national GOP doesn’t exactly have a track record of responsiveness to the base.

Hey, Newt: How does RINO hiney taste, champ?

NY guv: My personal and political failings are totally my fault…just kidding! It’s because I’m black that people notice them!

NY Dem governor Paterson isn’t liked very well by New Yorkers, for a ton of reasons that can be summed up as merely “professional and personal failures”!  Naturally, this can mean only one thing: it’s because he’s black.  Yes sir, the leftist MSM is piling on him because he’s black, and he warns that B.O. is getting skewered by the media (say what?) for the same reason.

For his part, B.O. is telling Paterson to shut his cakehole about it.  I don’t think that Oprompter wants another “reflexively trashing Whitey” moment like he did with the Cambridge Police incident, since he didn’t fare too well in that mess.

UPDATED: Obama administration thought it would be a great photo-op to send low-flying planes over NYC

UPDATES BELOW.

As sheer luck would have it, the citizens of the Big Apple panicked when the B.O. photo op’s targets flew low over their city.  Who knew?

It’s as if something involving low-flying planes and big buildings happened there almost eight years ago.  Or something.  For those of you on the left, feel free to Google “9/11/2001”.  It was kind of a big deal and stuff.

Smooth move, Ex Lax.

UPDATE (04/29/2009 – 08:18 A.M. EST):  It appears that the FAA knew ahead of time that this $329,000 stunt would cause a public panic…and they threatened NYPD and the mayor’s office with federal sanctions if they gave New Yorkers a heads-up:

Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.

In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD the Federal Aviation Administration’s James Johnston said the agency was aware of “the possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft flying at low altitudes” in an around New York City. But they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the FBI and even the mayor’s office and threatened federal sanctions if the secret got out…

NYC government to churches: Hey, you need to stop sheltering homeless people!

When Ronnie said “Government is not the solution…government is the problem”, he was right on the money.  From the Big Apple:

City officials have ordered 22 New York churches to stop providing beds to homeless people.

With temperatures well below freezing early Saturday, the churches must obey a city rule requiring faith-based shelters to be open at least five days a week — or not at all.

Arnold Cohen, president of the Partnership for the Homeless, a nonprofit that serves as a link with the city, said he had to tell the churches they no longer qualify.

He said hundreds of people now won’t have a place to sleep. …

Well, thank God goodness we won’t have those churches providing shelter for the homeless!  I mean, when a group of Christians wants to look out for their fellow man in freezing cold temperatures, that kind of compassion cannot go uncontested!

Exit question: Since NYC is run by liberals, can we safely assume that (a) liberals are hostile to God; (b) liberals don’t really care about the homeless; and (c) liberals are incapable of common sense?

Economics 101 for blue states

Two of the bluest states in the union, CA nd NY, have huge budget deficits and plan on addressing them by raising taxes.  Not the best approach, to say the least.  From WSJ:

Anyone who thinks the path to “fiscal discipline” is through higher taxes ought to look at the current budget spectacles in New York and California. The two liberal states have among the highest tax burdens in the country, yet both now find themselves with huge budget deficits and are debating still higher taxes to close the gap.

California has the highest state income tax rate in the country (10.3%), while New York State also has a high income tax rate (6.85%), with the combined state and city rate rising to 10.5% in New York City. Their overall government spending totals also happen to top the national charts. And, what do you know, California is $15 billion in the red this year while New York is trying to close a $6.4 billion 2009 budget hole, which budget expert E.J. McMahon of the Manhattan Institute expects to grow to $26 billion over three years.

California hasn’t even passed a budget yet, many weeks into the fiscal year. The Democrats in Sacramento have proposed a series of new taxes on businesses and individuals with incomes above $1 million. Their plan would raise the top income tax rate to 12%, which would be the highest in the nation. They would also repeal a tax law allowing businesses to carry forward losses against future profits.

…

A similar mess is playing out in Albany, where Assembly Democrats and Republicans have passed a budget with two added tax rates. Millionaires would face a one-percentage-point rate income tax hike (to 11.5% in New York City), while anyone making more than $5 million would get hit with another 0.85-point hike (to 12.35% in NYC). A new business tax of 4% would also apply to hedge fund managers.

And what happens to those vile, evil rich when you jack their taxes up even higher to fund the nanny state?  Well, they don’t like it very much…go figure!

The “progressives” who dominate politics in these states target the rich on grounds that they have the ability to pay. They also have the ability to leave. From 1997-2006, New York State lost 409,000 people (not counting foreign immigrants). For every two people who move into the state, three flee. Maybe the problem for New York is merely bad weather, not high taxes.

Except that sunny California is experiencing a similar exodus. Over the past decade 1.32 million more native-born Americans left the Golden State than moved in — despite beaches, mountains and 70-degree weather. Mostly the people who have fled are the successful, the talented and the rich.

I’m sure those numbers are simply inflated due to their large populations, right?  Nope.

If taxes don’t matter, then maybe someone can explain the divergent economic paths of California and New York and America’s two other most populous states, Florida and Texas. The latter two states have no personal income tax. Personal income has been growing about 50% faster in Florida and Texas than in California and New York. (See chart.) This year Texas became the No. 1 state for Fortune 500 corporate headquarters. About a dozen of those 58 corporations once called New York or California home, and taxes are one reason they departed.

Atlas is shrugging in CA and NY, and as long as the economically illiterate rubes continue running those states in the same way, the results will be the same.

Attention, liberals: The numbers don’t lie.