Flaco The Owl

As more and more animal habitats are destroyed or compromised by human presence or activity there may be an increased need for zoos, sanctuaries, or wildlife parks/reserves where animals can be allowed to thrive. Of course sometimes animals escape captivity and do just fine, showing perhaps they never should have been in captivity in the first place. One Flaco the Owl made a recent jailbreak--flew the coop so to speak--and has so far avoided the nets and traps put out for him.

Halley Barton was at a dinner party with friends on Saturday night when someone in the group shared the news that the Eurasian eagle-owl Flaco had coughed up a pellet of animal matter — rat fur and bones — in Central Park.

“It’s really exciting to see him learning how to catch his own rats,” said Ms. Barton, a health care case manager who was at the park around 1 p.m. Monday for her first look at the black-and-orange bird of prey. She had followed his activities online before then.

After Flaco flew off on Feb. 2 — his mesh enclosure had been vandalized — zoo officials, bird watchers and everyday people worried that he might not know how to fend for himself. He had never done so in his 13-year life. 

Non-Citizen Voting In NYC

New York City recently made it legal for non-citizens to vote in municipal elections. 

This will include legal immigrants on green cards/visas and illegal immigrants with DACA status or who can otherwise show residence in NYC. 

When I first heard about this I thought it was a joke or some deliberate conservative lie, but no in fact, this was indeed the case.

New York City became the largest city in the country to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections after the City Council on Thursday overwhelmingly approved legislation granting the right to more than 800,000 legal residents.
The move places New York City at the forefront of the debate over voting rights, serving as a stark contrast to some states that have moved to add voting restrictions, including explicitly barring noncitizens from voting.
The legislation was approved over the objections of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who questioned whether the City Council has the power to grant voting rights to noncitizens. Legal experts expect that the bill could face a legal challenge. Noncitizens would be able to begin to register to vote a year from now. They could begin voting in local elections as of Jan. 9, 2023, according to the City Council.

Brooklyn Bus Battle: You Back Up!

It's unavoidable. In life we will have arguments, debates, disagreements, altercations, squabbles, or outright fights with other people: friends, relatives, spouse, lovers, co-workers, and strangers. It is of course always more important to insist that you are right and that the other person acknowledge that he is wrong than to find a solution to an issue that is affecting both people. Okay, obviously that statement is hyperbole but people do act like that often enough such that it's a permanent problem in human relations, both individual and societal. 

Fortunately in a recent Brooklyn confrontation, there were only two bus drivers who were armed with nothing more than rising tempers instead of nations armed to the teeth and looking for a reason to start trouble. In this incident there were people around who were able to intervene, lower each antagonist's temperature, and find a solution that allowed everyone involved to maintain pride and solve the issue before anything other than  harsh words were exchanged. And that was good.

Two quarreling city bus drivers locked horns and refused to move their massive rigs in a bizarre stand-off on a narrow two-way avenue in Brooklyn, a video released Friday shows. 

Police: Shut Up And Submit!!!

It's a source of cynical amusement, frustration, and anger to me how some Americans think that THOSE people should always immediately and cravenly submit to any and all police demands no matter how unreasonable, humiliating, unconstitutional or criminal while reserving for themselves the right to question, debate, defy, reject or resist police orders, whether legal or not. I am not overly fond of the police but it remains prudent advice that unless you are ready, willing and able to take things to that other level with the police and ultimately the state, you won't win most physical confrontations with police officers. 

Most people are quick to point that out when police employ violence against Black men or women. Police bootlickers smugly point out that if the Black person had just slavishly complied from the beginning they wouldn't have been shot, tased, assaulted, pepper-sprayed, beaten senseless, or curb stomped. Somehow though this critical insight seems to leave them when they are the ones being bullied or harassed by police officers on a power trip.

A Staten Island man says he’s proud of his family’s support for the NYPD — but that all changed after a rowdy caught-on-camera clash with cops outside his family’s bagel shop. Both Awadeh Nemer, 30, and police agree the Nov. 5 melee erupted about 12:30 a.m. outside Diddle Dee Bagels on Richmond Road in Dongan Hills after two officers on traffic enforcement asked to see Nemer’s ID. He refused, and was arrested. Who was being disorderly is where they disagree. 

Bill de Blasio Drops Out; Why Was He Even Running?

The real mystery about de Blasio's campaign, is not that he dropped out but rather,what made him waste his time running in the first place? I would say the same of non-entities such as Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, among others. 

If you don't have a chance of winning, have nothing interesting to say, no ability to push an issue to the forefront, and aren't even someone other candidates might consider for a cabinet spot, then why did you waste time and money running for the Presidency?
EGO.

It all comes down to ego. And apparently de Blasio has an outsized one. Most politicians do. But you also need to know how to count. And I hear he has plenty of issues in NYC to fix. He will have time to do that now.
Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City who entered the Democratic presidential race on the premise that his brand of urban progressive leadership could appeal on a national scale, said on Friday that he was ending his candidacy.

Mr. de Blasio’s announcement came as it became clear he was unlikely to qualify for the fourth Democratic debate next month, cementing the notion that he lacked the support and funds to sustain his bid.

Stuyvesant and The Limits of Affirmative Action

I support public and private sector workplace affirmative action programs. Due to this country's history many people have a strong preference for their own and a disdain for black intelligence and competence. We live in a very segregated society. 

People who live separate residential and personal lives are as a group often unable or unwilling to judge co-workers, business partners, or new hires solely by potential and results. Humans usually don't work that way. 

Whether it is law firm partners who find more errors in associates' work if they think the associate is Black, hiring agents who sight unseen reject candidates with "Black" names, people that just tell someone straight out that they don't hire their kind, immigrants who won't hire Black people, managers more willing to hire white felons than Blacks without criminal records, workplace bigotry and stereotyping remains a huge problem. It's partly why the black unemployment rate has stubbornly remained twice that of whites for about as long as the metric has been recorded. If you're Black and haven't experienced any workplace funny business, congratulations but I think your number just hasn't come up yet.  It will soon. 

We do need standards. Properly done, affirmative action's should make people define and enforce objective standards. If a company hires an incompetent Black person, I won't cry when that person is fired, demoted or transferred. But evaluating job performance can be opaque and biased. A person who excels in one role or with one set of people can fail in a different role or with different co-workers. Measuring educational performance is different. This brings us to Stuyvesant High School. 

No Heat in NYC Public Housing

What do you do when your furnace doesn't work? Well if you own your own home then you will spend money to fix it. But if you rent your living space then your reasonable expectation (assuming that the landlord has responsibility for heat) is that your landlord will fix the malfunctioning furnace. 

If the landlord shows that he is incapable of fixing the furnace, won't fix the furnace from spite, or won't fix the furnace because he wants you to move, then you would probably stop paying the rent and/or sue the landlord. If you were a younger more excitable respect obsessed person you might even appear at your landlord's place of business to take a more "hands-on" approach to the discussion. Whatever you decide to do it's pretty clear that the landlord is breaking the deal that both of you signed. You pay rent. He provides a livable space for the agreed period of time. It's not a complicated relationship.

But this relationship doesn't work for everybody. If you are poor and black (or poor and hispanic or even poor and white) the system is not designed to work for you. Most middle class or upper class people would raise holy hell if they lived in a place without heat. Systems are created so that that doesn't happen. But when you lack money people with power don't expeditiously respond to your complaints. And tragically many poor people learn not to bother complaining.

Evelyn and Franklin Badia’s wish of qualifying for a public housing apartment became a reality in 2011 after eight years of waiting.  Then it got cold outside. Inside, too. The heat in their apartment — owned by the New York City Housing Authority, also known as Nycha — didn’t work that winter, or any winter after, they said. 

Bronx Subway Brawl Beatdown

We've talked before about the seeming modern phenomenon of women assaulting men and the internal moral conflicts which such actions can cause. Really though, such actions are probably not modern at all. It's just that we're better able to capture such assaults on video. Ronda Rousey or Laila Ali notwithstanding if you see a man really going all out on a woman, chances are quite high that the woman will badly lose the physical confrontation. So most civilized men are taught from early on to refrain from hitting a woman-often even in situations of self-defense or instances where another man would have already caught several fists to the face. Unfortunately this cultural expectation of male physical restraint has led to some women deciding that they can initiate a physical confrontation with a man without suffering any consequences. They, and indeed much of society, are actually outraged if a man under attack decides to defend himself. My personal belief is that a gentleman should never hit a lady but neither should a lady ever strike a gentleman. In other words--no hands. Period. Make sure that whatever you do to someone is something that the person is going to like. Because there's an excellent chance that he or she will respond in kind. And gentleman or not, we all have the right and duty to defend ourselves. Recently a man in NYC got into a dispute with a woman on a subway train. Allegedly she was too heavy to fit into a seat next to this man. So someone else got the seat. Words (and elbows?) were exchanged. After a period of mutual insults and threats the woman hit and spit on or at the man. Now that was the wrong thing to do. Is there any worse sign of utter contempt? But the target of her ire was evidently something of a chivalrous sort. Being unwilling to hit the woman, this fellow decided to beat the dog**** out of her husband. So I guess we should all be happy right? There was no violence against women. The problem with holding a man accountable for his wife's or girlfriend's actions is that by doing so we are giving women the moral standing of children. And that's no good. The whole point of being an adult is that we take responsibility for our own actions instead of passing the buck to someone else. Bottom line however is that one man got beat up and another is wanted for assault, all because no one knew how to act. Anyway the video is below. I am happy that I live in an area where I don't use public transportation. I have enough hassles in my life. This is why before you marry someone you might want to make sure that they are not the kind of person who will let their mouth write a check that your behind can't cash. I guess the husband had time to think about his wife's poor cognitive abilities while he was on the floor getting beaten like a rented mule. Love is grand isn't it?

On the two train , this lady was too big to sit in a small space next to the guy, he instead let his smaller coworker sit next to him. She then got upset , they threw insults back and fourth. She then began to get into his face. She spit at him , it missed. She spit at him again and he began to beat up her boyfriend because he didn't wanna hit her.
Posted by Belle Porter on Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Part two !!!!
Posted by Belle Porter on Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Even her in-laws say she’s out of her mind. The instigator of a videotaped subway brawl that left her husband battered on the floor of a Bronx train is nothing but bad news, according to one of her spouse’s aunts. “She’s mentally ill!” the aunt shouted Friday at her Brooklyn apartment. “She’s beating everybody up all the time. She fights everybody.” The Wednesday afternoon beatdown on the No. 5 train began when the victim’s batty bride started a screaming match with a male straphanger over a seat aboard the fairly crowded subway. The woman began spewing obscenities at the man, who shouted back but refrained from getting physical — even after she put her hands on him and pushed her cellphone into his face.LINK

NYPD Assaults James Blake

As you may have heard former tennis star James Blake was wrongly detained by the NYPD when he was mistaken for a suspect in an identity theft ring. That in and of itself is not a big issue. Police and witnesses make mistakes all the time. No the big problem was that rather than being questioned first and THEN detained or arrested by a uniformed or otherwise identifiable NYPD police officer (which could have cleared up any misunderstanding immediately) James Blake was rushed by undercover police officer James Frascatore, grabbed by the neck, assaulted and forced to the ground. The officer did not identify himself. I'm not aware of the exact particulars of self-defense laws in NYC but presumably if strange men assault you in public you do have the right to defend yourself. If Blake had tried to defend himself of course the officer would have shot him and felt piously justified in doing so. Plenty of people, some with good intentions, many more with bad ones, give advice to black men on how to avoid unnecessary confrontations with police. Some of that advice is worthwhile. Most of it is utterly worthless. Here we have Blake literally minding his own business in Gotham before being assaulted by a public servant (who apparently has a track record of violent and abusive policing). There is nothing that Blake should or could have done differently to minimize his chances of being attacked. He was a black man and that was sufficient. Of course it's not just race. It's also class. Can you imagine anyone accusing a Caucasian American business owner or lawyer or other perceived/actual paid up member of the 1% of a non-violent crime and having the police execute a violent takedown? Of course not. Heck, even Mafia bosses with platoons of killers on call don't get treated like James Blake was treated. To add insult to injury the person who police thought was the initial suspect wasn't involved in the alleged crime of identity theft. The NYPD commissioner issued a mush mouthed apology but the union is defending Officer Frascatore. Just another day in the US. It is surreal. Once again, I must admit that Cliven Bundy and his supporters weren't wrong about everything. If the people tasked to enforce the law routinely brutalize people under protection of the law, what recourse does a citizen have?








James Blake Statement:

Just before noon on Wednesday, September 9, 2015, while I was standing on a sidewalk outside my hotel in midtown Manhattan waiting for a car to take me to the U.S. Open, a plainclothes New York City Police officer tackled me to the ground, handcuffed me, paraded me down a crowded sidewalk, and detained me for ten minutes before he and his four colleagues realized they had the wrong man.

The officer, who was apparently investigating a case of credit card fraud, did not identify himself as a member of law enforcement, ask my name, read me my rights, or in any way afford me the dignity and respect due every person who walks the streets of this country. And while I continue to believe the vast majority of our police officers are dedicated public servants who conduct themselves appropriately, I know that what happened to me is not uncommon. 

When this incident was reported in the news media, Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner Bratton both called me to extend their personal apologies, and I greatly appreciate those gestures. But extending courtesy to a public figure mistreated by the police is not enough.As I told the Commissioner, I am determined to use my voice to turn this unfortunate incident into a catalyst for change in the relationship between the police and the public they serve. For that reason, I am calling upon the City of New York to make a significant financial commitment to improving that relationship, particularly in those neighborhoods where incidents of the type I experienced occur all too frequently. The Commissioner has agreed to meet with my representatives and me to discuss our ideas in that regard, and we very much look forward to that meeting.
Frascatore's History

NYC Subway "Manspreading" Double Standards

Big Sister Is Watching You

I am often glad that I live in a region where public transportation is all but considered an environmentalist plot to deprive every true blue red blooded American of his right to drive a vehicle of his choosing anywhere he wants to all by himself if he so desires. Okay that is obviously an exaggeration but not by all that much. People like their cars and trucks around here. What public transportation exists in southeast Michigan is modest and often doesn't go beyond municipal boundaries. Although downtown population densities are slightly increasing, suburban sprawl remains king. Even people who live and work within the same city usually drive to work instead of taking the bus. There isn't really any train or subway system. Outside of married people working at the same firm, carpooling isn't all that common. Single driver usage rules. This means of course that each driver is king or queen of their own vehicle and all that resides within it. They can listen to music as loudly as they wish, recline their seat as far back as they want, use the passenger's seat as a combination office desk/restaurant table and sit in their seat however they damn well please. This last consideration is under some attack in New York City. Apparently there are some women people who have decided that how some other men people sit on the subway is not only rude, gross and downright nasty but that it's also sexist, unchivalrous, in need of public shaming and likely eventual ticketing by police. Yes I am talking about that apparent scourge of New York City public transportation, men sitting with their legs wider apart than some women care to experience. The horror!!! The horror!!!  



It is the bane of many female subway riders. It is a scourge tracked on blogs and on Twitter. And it has a name almost as distasteful as the practice itself. It is manspreading, the lay-it-all-out sitting style that more than a few men see as their inalienable underground right. Now passengers who consider such inelegant male posture as infringing on their sensibilities — not to mention their share of subway space — have a new ally: the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Taking on manspreading for the first time, the authority is set to unveil public service ads that encourage men to share a little less of themselves in the city’s ever-crowded subways cars. The targets of the campaign, those men who spread their legs wide, into a sort of V-shaped slouch, effectively occupying two, sometimes even three, seats are not hard to find. Whether they will heed the new ads is another question. Riding the F train from Brooklyn to Manhattan on a recent afternoon, Fabio Panceiro, 20, was unapologetic about sitting with his legs spread apart. “I’m not going to cross my legs like ladies do,” he said. “I’m going to sit how I want to sit.” And what if Mr. Panceiro, an administrative assistant from Los Angeles, saw posters on the train asking him to close his legs? “I’d just laugh at the ad and hope that someone graffitis over it,” he said.

For Kelley Rae O’Donnell, an actress who confronts manspreaders and tweets photos of them, her solitary shaming campaign now has the high-powered help of the transportation authority, whose ads will be plastered inside subway cars. “It drives me crazy,” she said of men who spread their legs. “I find myself glaring at them because it just seems so inconsiderate in this really crowded city.” When Ms. O’Donnell, who lives in Brooklyn and is in her 30s, asks men to move, she said, they rarely seem chastened: “I usually get grumbling or a complete refusal.”
LINK

Football Players Oppressing Women

I can't believe, well actually I can believe it so that wouldn't have been an accurate statement. I will say that I am more amused than annoyed by the extent to which some people, in this case feminists, will go to extremes to find something to be irritated about which just happens to be primarily done by the opposite gender. Honestly I think that if we were truthful with each other each gender could probably come up with what they think of as excellent reasons that or circumstances in which the opposite gender should be more like their own. I know I could. Generally though, those sorts of discussions are mostly held in single gender forums. Most people don't take them all that seriously. They are just ways to blow off steam. Most people left behind the "Oooh (boys/girls) are icky" stage of life when they were around twelve years old. The so-called "War of The Sexes" will never be lost or won because there's always too much fraternization with the enemy as Kissinger pointed out. Some differences are made to be enjoyed and sought after; others perhaps can be amusingly tolerated. But in any event certain differences are real. They aren't going anywhere. So people should just learn to deal with them. In the big picture I don't think the differences are that important. Making a brouhaha out of how men sit is from where I stand just incredibly narcissistic and entitled. It's also dare I say, more than a little bossy. It shouldn't need to be said but evidently some people need to understand that men by definition have different anatomy than women and are also generally larger than women. Men sitting a certain way doesn't necessarily have anything to do with being sexist or aggressive against women or anything like that. Most of them just need the room. If trying to bully men into sitting like women is the most important issue in New York City, then I congratulate New York City for having solved such issues as housing segregation, police brutality, gentrification, rising income inequality, bad schools and other evils that the rest of the the country is still battling.

The King of The North Is Inconsiderate

We talked about the decline of chivalry before. Although I was raised to be chivalrous the world has definitely changed since my youth during the Pleistocene Epoch. There are not as many women today as there were then who appreciate chivalry. But putting that aside I fail to see how sitting like a man is by definition unchivalrous. It sounds to me like some of the women complaining have less of a problem with ungracious men than they do with men period. That's a personal issue. I don't think it should be of concern to the state. Silliness aside this campaign really sounds like something that would take place in a nation like Singapore where individual rights and choices are considered far less important than rigidly enforced cultural conformity. If I were sitting on a bus or train and some woman wanted to sit next to me I would be polite and try to give her as much room as I could. Within limits. But if she starts to photograph me and harangue me about how I am sitting or how my supposed "male entitlement" offends her delicate sensibilities well she will get an entirely different response. Now just imagine if yours truly walked up to a young woman and explained that I was grossly offended because her skirt was too short or her purse was too large and taking up too much space or that she was too fat and blocking other people from using adjacent seats. I'm betting that wouldn't end well. It certainly wouldn't get a twitter campaign, a public transportation PR initiative or a supportive NYT article. It's funny to me that some women will try to deflate any criticism of their actions by calling it shaming but in this instance are trying to explicitly shame men for being men. Like I wrote above, I'm glad that I live where I do and avoid public transportation. The only busybodies I have to deal with are in the workplace. To be fair there are almost as many people in NYC as there are in the entirety of Michigan so perhaps I don't fully grok the concerns around space. Either way I thought this story was funny as can be.

What are your thoughts?

Disturbed Man Kills Two NYPD Officers: Blame Game Ensues

As you might have noticed (and I was planning on writing a separate post touching on this and still may later this week or next) there have been recent nationwide protests about the level of (often deadly) violence which US local police forces use against Black Americans, especially Black males, especially young and/or unarmed Black males. In the cases of the deaths of Michael Brown, John Crawford and Eric Garner, mostly white grand juries and/or prosecutors refused to charge the police with any crime at all. Some white supporters of police not only applaud and celebrate these no indictment outcomes but take to the media to lecture black people on their actual or perceived shortcomings and point out that in the big picture, police killings of citizens are relatively rare events. So quit crying and be happy you're living in America. Or something. The same people taking a phlegmatic view about police on citizen violence started singing a different tune when a disturbed and violent young man shot and killed two NYPD police officers, after shooting his girlfriend and before killing himself.

Two police officers sitting in their patrol car in Brooklyn were shot at point-blank range and killed on Saturday afternoon by a man who, officials said, had traveled to the city from Baltimore vowing to kill officers. The suspect then committed suicide with the same gun, the authorities said. The officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were in the car near Myrtle and Tompkins Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant in the shadow of a tall housing project when the gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, walked up to the passenger-side window and assumed a firing stance, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said. Mr. Brinsley shot several rounds into the heads and upper bodies of the officers, who never drew their weapons, the authorities said.

Suddenly the relatively rare incident of a citizen shooting and killing two police officers became the foreseeable outcome of "anti-police rhetoric" and "incendiary comments" made by various anti-police brutality protesters and such persons as President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and professional gadfly/MSNBC host Al Sharpton and probably any other black person to the left of Ben Carson. At least that is what former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Police Union leader Pat Lynch said.

To paraphrase and expand on what a friend on facebook pointed out recently, remember the meltdown the right-wing media and police unions had over the (alleged) murder of a Pennsylvania state trooper by right-winger Eric Frein? Remember how mad Giuliani and Sean Hannity got at their right wing drinking buddies for all the murderous anti-government and anti-police sentiment that presaged the murders of police officers by Cliven Bundy supporters Jerad and Amanda Miller? Remember how right-wing Congressman Steve King of Iowa harshly criticized the anti-tax/militia members of the right for setting the stage for the murderous actions of Joseph Stack?  Remember how conservatives were horrified about the murders committed by Fox News viewer Jim David Adkisson who felt compelled to murder Unitarians because they were liberal? Conservatives felt so despondent about this that they forced Fox News to reduce or eliminate its demonization of liberals. Right. Of course you don't remember any of that because none of it ever took place. Rather than condemn Stack, Congressman Steve King did all but say he sympathized with him and blamed the IRS for existing. By the standard which people like Giuliani or Congressman Peter King seek to apply to others they themselves have "blood on their hands". They would disagree with this. Their argument is of course weak. They seek to delegitimize all protest against police brutality and police misconduct. It's the same media playbook that conservatives used against MLK and others in the sixties. Giuliani is incapable of perceiving that such a thing as police misconduct exists. It's a blind spot that both he and several police officers seem to share. I remain amazed that such a bitterly malevolent person was ever elected to any office but that's an essay for another day.

It apparently has to be written out in bold letters but it is possible to protest against police brutality and murder of citizens without also cheering for the murder of police officers. And I think most decent Americans realize this. If I protest against racist police that doesn't automatically mean that I hate all white people or all police. That said, much as Malcolm X once got in hot water for saying that chickens coming home to roost was a certainty, it's important to realize that a system that does not provide a sense of justice will see more and more confrontations and killings between officers and citizens. If we don't want this (and who does?), all of us must work to weed out and punish the bad officers. If the man who murdered those officers hadn't killed himself it's a certainty that unlike police officers who have killed citizens, he would have been arrested, indicted and convicted. Giuliani is not going to dig up irrelevant dirt on the deceased officers as he did with unarmed Black men shot by police. No one is going to claim, as Donald Trump did with the vindicated Central Park Five, that these police weren't angels. No one is going to wonder if the police did anything to cause Mr. Brinsley to fear for his life and use justified force. So just as I don't think that the actions of Darren Wilson or Daniel Pantaleo mean that all officers are murderous goons, I don't think that protesting their brutality means you cheer Brinsley. I don't want cops shooting innocent people. I also don't want crazy people shooting cops. It's not an either/or situation. And whether Giuliani or Lynch or anyone else like protests or not they are lawful. I am sure that were a person like Giuliani to obtain greater power than he had he would eliminate protests altogether but fortunately this little amendment is still in effect. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

What are your thoughts?

Obama considers Ray Kelly to head DHS

One thing which my father and other mentors always told me is to pay less attention to what people say and more attention to what they do. Actions speak louder than words. A manager might say that she's impressed with your experience and skills but if she ensures she pays you less than everyone else in your department with equal or lesser experience then perhaps she's not really all that impressed. A couple might say they would enjoy coming to a get together at your house but if every time you invite them they're busy or you get voicemail then perhaps they're trying to politely send you a message. Another person might tell you that your business plan is going to take the world by storm but if he's unwilling to invest chances are he doesn't have faith in your supposed business acumen. 

So with all that in mind it was irritating to hear a President who has spoken eloquently about the evils of racial profiling in Arizona and elsewhere to, if not quite endorse, float a big fat trial balloon towards the appointment of NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly to replace outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. New York Senator Chuck Schumer has been lobbying to get Kelly that job. Obama offered Kelly praise, saying he would be "well-qualified" for the position.

Ray Kelly's obviously done an extraordinary job in New York," Obama said. "And the federal government partners a lot with New York, because obviously, our concerns about terrorism often times are focused on big-city targets, and I think Ray Kelly's one of the best there is.

The problem with that is as you may have known from reading this blog and others is that Commissioner Kelly has been the overseer and architect of an official racially based stop-and-frisk policy that targets black and Hispanic New York citizens. It's primarily aimed at young black males but anyone and everyone with the requisite level of melanin is targeted regardless of gender, age, income, style of dress or other characteristics. You can be a twenty something hoodlum in a hoodie looking for someone to rob, a thirty something professional dressed to the nines for a career changing job interview, a fifty something grandparent walking to church in your Sunday best or a sneaker wearing pre-teen going to school. It doesn't matter. The police have quotas to meet. And they intend to meet them, no matter what because those are the incentives that Kelly has laid down. And as far as Kelly's boss, Mayor Lord Bloomberg is concerned the NYPD needs to be stopping fewer white people and more black people. One wonders if the President agrees with Bloomberg's statements. Kelly has been a vociferously nasty defender of the stop-n-frisk policy even as it finally starts to wind its way through court challenges. Kelly shows zero signs of being concerned with the constitutionality of his policy, its complete lack of effectiveness or the fear and hatred that it engenders among the black and brown population. Kelly has the ability to stop and frisk people on a level than Zimmerman could only dream of. There are over 8 million people in NYC. There are 53,000 in Sanford. At the time of this writing only NY Representative Hakeem Jeffries has had the guts to publicly criticize the idea of having Kelly as DHS head. 

"He's been a good administrator, and perhaps I could even support his potential appointment to this position in the absence of the massive aggressive stop-and-frisk program that he's run, and the unconstitutional Muslim surveillance program, but that's kind of like saying, I had a good year, if you don't count the winter, spring, and fall," Jeffries said.

There's got to be an effective balance between national security or effective law enforcement on the one hand and a healthy respect for our civil rights and civil liberties on the other. Ray Kelly, during his tenure as police commissioner under Michael Bloomberg, has consistently disrespected that balance, and that's why I think he would be a poor choice for secretary of Homeland Security"

We shouldn't be too surprised by President Obama's statements. After all it is under his watch and with CIA assistance that the NYPD has worked hand in hand with DHS/CIA to run surveillance of left-wing protesters and activists as well as Muslims of various backgrounds, outside of New York City and even outside of New York State. And the President has not as far as I can recall had an unkind word to say about Mayor Lord Bloomberg or Commissioner Kelly. NYC and NY State have not been threatened with loss of federal resources or sued in federal court after every policy change. This is is stark contrast to the President's words and actions against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.  Again, neither of those people are running the kinds of programs which Kelly is running.  The Executive Branch has reigned them in. Actions speak louder than words.

If you are upset about profiling, if you think that Zimmerman was wrong to assume that Martin was up to no good because of his race and clothing then I don't see how you could possibly think that Kelly is doing a good job in New York City with stop-and-frisk or that he should be given national responsibility as DHS Secretary. The President often likes to have it both ways. He's a politician after all. But people nationwide and especially those in New York should recognize that the President's statements are troubling. You can't claim to be against racial profiling and speak positively of promoting one of the nation's most vigorous profilers. It would be a serious betrayal of the President's most fervent base to put someone like Kelly as DHS head. I think, as I have said before, that people in NYC and across the nation needed to make this stop-and-frisk policy a red-line issue in the same way in which Arizona's SB1070 became. This is a situation where the President must choose. It is also one where I think he already has...

What's your take?

When Will Democrats Learn??

You've heard me say this numerous times on this site, but it bears repeating. I have the utmost respect for the Republican Party when it comes to their precise timing and alignment of party, during elections. Granted, their alignment over the last few years has been around the WRONG candidate, you have to commend their strategy and overall execution. Republicans know how to get in line. I don't know if there is some secret head person that convenes a secret session and hands out the orders, but they do it flawlessly. For the life of me I can't understand why Democrats lack this skill, and have chosen to ignore this one very important play from the "Republican Play Book on Politics." I guess the Democrats aren't scared of losing a race -- the race for Mayor of New York City.



The City of New York is preparing to crown a new mayor. After twelve-years, Lord Bloomberg (that's for you Shady) must abdicate the thrown, and "we the people" must now elect some fresh blood. People are quite divided on Bloomberg's performance over the last twelve years, so the race could go to either party. For Democrats, this should be a no-brainer, a walk in the damn park. At least I thought so, when Speaker of the New York City Council Christine Quinn finally ended speculation, and threw her Manolo's into the race. NOOOOO! In typical Democratic fashion of chaos, division, and lack of unity, they are headed down the path of over complicating the race, and they just could lose this thing. 

This morning as I watched the news in captions during my workout, I saw a headline that stopped me in tracks -- "Anthony Weiner Considering Run for Mayor of New York City." 

Are you F*%KING kidding me??? Has Anthony lost his god forsaken mind??

In a New York Time Magazine Interview, Weiner says he does not know when he will decide about entering the race: 
“the fact that I don’t know tells me I shouldn't run. Or I should not run now.” 

On the current Democratic contenders, Weiner said: 
“I know them all. I like them all.” 

On Christine Quinn's candidacy: 
“The term-limits thing, as an issue, was a deal breaker for me. But, I think the polls are right: Chris Quinn is leading, and then someone will get into a runoff with her. I don’t like runoffs, and I don’t think we should have them so you don’t have these divisive primaries anymore.”

Here is my issue with all of this.... Anthony Weiner shouldn't be saying anything right now. He shouldn't be doing a single interview, and if he does, he should keep his mouth shut on the mayoral race. Let me remind everyone, this is the same crap that happened in 2001 that allowed Bloomberg to cruise in. So if Democrats want to see a repeat, they should certainly continue down this path. Weiner himself, admits  that he wouldn't want to see a runoff debacle occur, yet he is proposing his own candidacy, which would certainly split the vote and force us to runoff territory. This is where the Democrats fail, when it comes to election strategy. You  don't put two high profile candidates up against each other. This is common sense. 

Listen, I'm all for second chances and restarts. However, part of second chances and restarts is demonstrating growth, and in demonstrating that growth I need to see a common sense signal that tells me you are smart enough to know when to embark on all of this. Weiner clearly has not gotten to this stage. It's only been two-years since Weinergate. This timing also shows me that he is still the self absorbed bastard that he was, when he felt comfortable sending inappropriate pics of himself through Facebook to women. He has not learned a damn thing. He is just regaining some semblance of balance and trust, with his wife and 13-month old son. Why in the hell would he even think about dragging them through the mud pit again? Come on!! This reminds me of that over zealous nut job Governor (whom shall remain nameless here), who choose her own self-glorification and political ambition over the needs and sensitivity, of her own daughter. Maybe five-years from now Weiner can make some sort of triumphant comeback to politics. Now is not the time for that comeback, or for Weiner to even play with the thoughts. When will Democrats learn this?

What do you think??

1) Should Anthony Weiner make a return to politics? if yes, then when?
2) Should Anthony Weiner run for Mayor of New York City? If not, why?
3) How would a Democratic Primary look between Quinn, Weiner and Liu?
4) What are your thoughts on Speaker Quinn's decision to vote yes on Bloomberg's term limit extension?