NYC public school bus drivers of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181, serving the largest school district in the nation, will be reporting back to work from their strike Wednesday just in time for the kids to return to school after mid-winter recess. Drivers for non-public schools will start Tuesday. All in all the city spent about $20.6 million in transit cards, taxis and gas for tens 0f thousands of kids to get to school during the month long bus strike, but saved an estimated $80 million by not having to pay bus companies during the strike, which started over the bus drivers’ job protection issues. So don’t cry for the City, Argentina.
Union leaders took heart over a letter written by five Democrats – City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, City Comptroller John Liu, former City Comptroller Bill Thompson and former Councilman Sal Albanese – all vying for the mayoral seat after Bloomberg vacates, asking them to return to work proming to revisit the job security issue if any of them are elected. That’s a big “IF”. ♦
How many tragic space heater fires have to occur before authorities crack the whip on landlords who refuse to provide heat for their tenants during the winter? Space heaters accounted for 32% of home heating fires and 80% of home heating fire deaths. What should you do if your landlord does not supply appropriate heat for the winter months for which they are obligated? According to the HPD, the following:
1. Contact your landlord, managing agent, or super to report the problem. If you’re not sure whom to call, check your lease for a name and contact number.
2. File a complaint with the City’s Citizen Service Center by calling 311. The Center will take the following action to get the heating problem resolved:
3. The Center will try on your behalf to contact the landlord or managing agent to get the heat working properly.
4. If not successful, then the Center will send one of its own housing inspectors to your apartment. The Center won’t inform the landlord of the time of inspection. The inspector will issue violations to the landlord if he determines heat is lacking. If the inspector determines that the heating problem isn’t limited to your apartment, he or she may issue a building-wide violation.
5. If, after receiving violations, the landlord doesn’t fix the problem, HPD’s Emergency Repair Program may use in-house staff and/or outside contractors to perform needed repairs to restore the heat and/or hot water. The cost of these repairs will be charged to the landlord, not to you.
GOOD LUCK! ♦
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President Obama is pushing for more vigorous enforcement ofthe Voting Rights Act following the even more vigorous attempt by the Republican Party to disenfranchise voters during the primaries back in November 2012. The, now universal, symbol for the attempted disenfranchisement, 102 y.o. Desiline Victor from Miami, Florida, who stood in line for three hours and made two trips to the polls in order to vote last November, was honored by the President during his State of the Union Address last Tuesday for her inspiring efforts.
The fear is that a conservative ruling will strike down one of the core elements of the landmark 1965 law, the 15th amendment, that guarantees African Americans and other minorities the right to vote. Looks like the Tea Party is getting the South to do their dirty work for them. ♦
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And WELCOME BACK ROBIN ROBERTS!
At five months to the day after receiving a bone marrow transplant, Robin Roberts will be back on the Good Morning America anchor desk Wednesday morning. And she’ll be making a lot of folks very uncomfortable.
Not because she’ll be sporting her post-surgery baldie, offset with impeccable studio make-up; or that she’ll refuse to allow anyone to pity her or offer up condolences on her condition; or that her disposition will not be one of resignation or victimization.
She’ll be unnerving a lot of people because she’ll have that almost blinding, power-filled aura of a woman who has consistently looked that SOB Death in its face and sang, “I a m tell-in’ youuuu, I’M NOT GOIN’!!!” (yeah, the Dream Girls song : ) ♦
President Obama used his recent Google hangout appearance to calm the nerves of some in the NRA who have been fooled into thinking that the government is “coming to take away their guns.” It’s a lie told by NRA’s CEO and chief lobbyist, Wayne LaPierre. A lie that is then regurgitated by Congressional Republicans in their effort to keep assault weapons on the streets.
Asked why he favored a ban on the assault weapons which only accounts for a small percentage of gun deaths, as opposed to handguns, which are responsible for the majority, the President replied;
“I actually don’t think we should ban handguns. But keep in mind what we’re trying to do is come up with a package that protects Second Amendment rights but also contributes to reduce violence.”
Obama said assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are “generally not used for hunting,” and that while banning them won’t “solve every problem,” it “can play a meaningful part” in reducing gun violence.
“When it comes to assault weapons … my concern is, for example, in Aurora, when a young person can go into a theater and shoot off a hundred rounds in less than a minute,” Obama said. “These are weapons of war … so for us to restrict some of those high-capacity magazines … that probably can save some lives.”
Meanwhile, Wayne LaPierre is continuing his fear game, telling Americans that the President is coming after their guns, so they need to go out and buy more guns in order to arm themselves against this “tyrannical government!”
If there is one thing I can say about Mr. Wayne LaPierre it will be this: He definitely knows how to keep his followers in check and to keep the checks pouring into his bank account!
Cold as a witch’s tit in New York today, 18 degrees! And since it’s a federal holiday, practically everything is closed so no need to go outside…that’s my excuse and I’m standing behind it…
President Obama has declared a presidential proclamation citing February 2013 National Black History Month, commemorating and honoring the 50th Anniversary of The March On Washington. The groundbreaking march solidified the cause for justice and civil rights in the hearts and minds of all the brave folks who were a part of it.
“In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr. from his “I Have A Dream” speech during the 1963 March On Washington. ♦
The ever-kool, Brooklyn Congressman Hakeem Jeffries is demanding an apology from NRA hell raiser Wayne LaPierre for comments he made last week in an editorial for The Daily Caller about Super Storm Sandy giving Brooklynites an open invitation to pillage and plunder, reiterating his call for more gun ownership:
“We saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia. Looters ran wild in south Brooklyn . . . And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not be home at all.”
But Congressman Jeffries begs to differ:
“There’s reality, and then there’s Wayne’s world. In Wayne’s world facts apparently don’t matter. The reality is that the in week after Super Storm Sandy hit, crime went down.”
“Wayne’s world”… lol! So far, no word on that apology, and I wouldn’t hold my breath either Hakeem. ♦
On Sunday Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand called for the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act. House Republican lawmakers opposed revisions to the bill back in October 2011 because it had the nerve to suggest its expansion to include LGBT and Native American victims of domestic violence as well. House Republicans just can’t wait to be kicked out next year, can they? The VAWA presently funds programs for domestic violence victims. Is there really a need to emphasize ALL victims of domestic violence, you numbnuts!? ♦
Mayor Bloomberg is pissed about the rising incidents of iPhone thefts marring his record of NYC’s low murder rate in 2012. The free weekly paper, The Brooklyn Paper, chronicled iPhone thefts in the 35 neighborhoods it covers, and its police blotter recorded an increase in Apple product thefts by 3,890, with some of thefts resulting in its owner being killed. My advice on avoiding iPhone theft? Put the ish away and read a paper! ♦
The President’s weekly address can be summed up in this statement: No one in America should work full-time and raise their children in poverty. The statement is part of the address as President Obama called on Congress to do what is necessary to bring jobs back to America to “help grow and strengthen the middle class.”
So Pope Benedict XVI announced on Monday that he’s retiring, the first papal resignation in 600 years!
At 84 and ailing (it was recently revealed he had a pacemaker for years, the battery being replaced only a few weeks ago) The Pope stated not wanting to go out like his predecessor Pope John Paul II, who died of heart failure while still in his Papacy. What would be great would be for the Vatican to take this unprecedented opportunity to bring in a new kind of Pope who can bring the Church and Christianity into the 21st century. Sorta like the intentions of the character from Dan Brown‘s “Demon’s and Angels“, Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca, but without the maniacal plot to vanquish all his competitors and fake the rescue of Vatican City from an Illuminati plot blow it up. A Pope who will create a fresh path to ideas regarding birth control, homosexuality, the use of the Church’s vast riches to help the poor all around the world who join the legions of Christianity more regularly than any other faith. Making religion less of a cash cow and more of a scared one. The world doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Christianity can no longer afford to stay in theirs. “Make That Change” as Michael Jackson used to say. ♦
President Obama‘s State of The Union Address went off as planned, without a hitch. He made good on his promises to address a push for the strongest of gun control laws, to continued commitment on bringing the troops home from Afghanistan, to fix the Immigration process, to administer stern presidential warning commissioning both parties to grapple fairly and intelligently with the country’s debt crisis and its recovery from it, and creating an agenda to battle climate change. I think he pretty much has the next four years covered, don’t you? And they will make great signature legislation along with ObamaCare, to come off of what is already an extraordinary Presidency. ♦
Today is Ash Wednesday, one of the holiest days in Christianity. But how many of us really know the story behind the ash in Ash Wednesday? Here’s a quick lowdown:
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent in the Western Christian calendar. Occurring 46 days before Easter, it is a moveable fast that can fall as early as February 4 and as late as March 10. According to the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke; Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the desert, where he endured temptation by Satan. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of this 40-day liturgical period of prayer and fasting. Ash Wednesday derives its name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of adherents as a reminder and celebration of human mortality, and as a sign of mourning and repentance to God. The ashes used are typically gathered from the burning of the palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday. This practice is common in much of Christendom, being celebrated by Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, and some Baptist denominations ~ Wikipedia
“…ashes on the foreheads of adherents as a reminder and celebration of human mortality, and as a sign of mourning and repentance to God.” And now you know…and knowing IS half the battle…♦
OMG! I’m I just slow or has everyone just discovered the miracle of Groupon.com. Well–its a magical site that allows you to print out super-duper discounts on everything from aqua filters to zebra patterned pillow cases. I’m talking up to sometimes half off stuff like Sushi dinners, spa days, kickboxing lessons, hotel stays, camping gear, comedy shows, clothes, everything!
One thing’s for sure, the Brains behind this idea did their homework on how to take a simple idea like the discount coupon and make it a globally successful business in an economy that otherwise is not giving out breaks. Wish it had been me, but there’s more great ideas where that one came from pilgrims!…♦
President Obama‘s Administration is looking to secure the same policy to declare war as the George Bush Administration had before him. Whats different about Obama’s policy is that war will be carried out not by soldiers on the ground, dispatching in huge battalions to remote areas of the world risking life and limb, but with the technological advancement of The War Drone.
Will this be our new mode of war, carrying out exempt strikes with laser pinpoint accuracy, taking out the enemy in the middle of the night while the rest of America sleeps soundly?
A new report by Stanford and New York Universities today, claims that just one in 50 victims of American drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists while the rest are innocent civilians. The study lays much of the blame on the use of the ‘double-tap’ strike–where a drone fires one missile and then another as rescuers try to get to victims.
All is fair in war, right?
Obviously warfare has changed exceedingly from when we used spears, muskets, cannons, and bomber jets, detractors still say that there’s enormous opportunity for abuse in having such a lethal program run entirely by executive order, maybe not with Obama but certainly some future President with a long list of perceived enemies who may use the weapon as a personal means of retribution…
Mark R. Jacobson, a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States who served with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, created a 5 point lists of misconceptions about President Obama and the Drone War (abbreviated here):
1. Drones are immoral.
Drones are neither autonomous killer robots nor sentient beings making life-or-death decisions. Yet, with the “Terminator”-like connotations of the term, it is easy to forget that these vehicles are flown via remote control by some 1,300 Air Force pilots. Drones are an evolution in military technology, not a revolution in warfare.
2. Drone strikes cause inordinate civilian casualties.
Armed drones are some of the most precise weapons used in conflict; we hit what we aim for. But any lethal force results in some civilian casualties, and the use of drones beyond “hot battlefields” means that the civilian-combatant distinction is harder to make.
3. Drones allow us to fight wars without danger.
The allure is simple: A drone swoops in while its operator is safe, thousands of miles away, and the precision-guided ordnance hits a target, with little risk to our troops.
But drones should not give us a false sense of security. After all, the intelligence required for targeting may require U.S. boots on the ground. And drone attacks will not improve governance in a nation that offers a haven to terrorists.
4. Drones are technologically complex weapons that only rich nations can afford.
Armed drones are neither as simple as model airplanes nor as complex as high-performance fighter jets. Of course, a remote-controlled helicopter that you can build in your garage is certainly not as capable as the $26.8 million MQ-9 Reaper, the primary U.S. hunter-killer drone. But drones are much less expensive than fighter aircraft, and in an age of increasing austerity, it is tempting for nations to consider replacing jet fleets with armed drones.
5. Obama will be remembered as the drone president.
The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq compelled the United States to boost the speed and accuracy with which it targets terrorists. But it was not until the Obama administration that U.S. technology and intelligence caught up with the need to take down terrorist networks rather than just individual leaders. As a result, there have been three to six times more drone strikes under Obama than under Bush. While the use of drone warfare has come of age under Obama, whether he comes to be defined by this weapon is very much a political question. ~ h/t The Washington Post
Why drones? Better yet, why war period? I’d like to see that discussion on the table one day. In the meantime the Drone War question rages on.
Over the last few years, Democrats and Republicans have come together and cut our deficit by more than $2.5 trillion through a balanced mix of spending cuts and higher tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. That’s more than halfway towards the $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists and elected officials from both parties say we need to stabilize our debt.
I believe we can finish the job the same way we’ve started it – with a balanced mix of more spending cuts and more tax reform. And the overwhelming majority of the American people agree – both Democrats and Republicans.
Now, my preference – and the preference of many Members of Congress – is to do that in a balanced, comprehensive way, by making sensible changes to entitlement programs and reforming our tax code. As we speak, both the House and Senate are working towards budget proposals that I hope will lay out this kind of balanced path going forward.
Hey Boy Scouts! Guess what? You’ve had gay scouts and gay scoutmasters for years. You’ve given them badges and congratulated them on excellent fundraising and (get this) rewarded them for exemplary moral behavior, helping others, being patriotic and making their parents proud. These gay scouts have also met legislators, built structures for community organizations, worked at soup kitchens, told jokes, endured camp-outs and Klondike Derbies, and generally represented the organization with pride.
So what do you do? First of all, you deny that gay scouts and scoutmasters have a place in your organization, even though they’ve done exemplary work. Then you say that gay scouts do not reflect the vision that you have of what a healthy American boy and a committed adult male are all about and you begin to exclude them from your group. Is exclusion such a hallowed American value that you feel the need to protect it with your reputation? In a country where communal groups such as the Scouts are seeing shrinking enrollment, does it make sense to exclude people who actually want to help, and have helped throughout your history?
Now you say that you’re considering scrapping your discriminatory and hateful policies. Good for you. I will give you all the credit when you really make this decision final. In the end, you really have no choice.
President Obama lines it up perfectly, getting ready to throw the football from the White House all the way to the site of today’s Superbowl in New Orleans. Or maybe he’s getting ready to pass it to Hillary Clinton in 2016!
The White House is responding to critics who questioned whether President Obama has ever been skeet shooting.
White House Senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer tweeted out this picture on Saturday morning after much skepticism about the president’s claim that he participates in the sport “all the time.”
“POTUS shoots clay targets on the range at Camp David on Aug. 4, 2012,” reads the tweet, with a link to the photograph.
The photo would appear to quiet the controversy that arose after an interview with The New Republic, in which Obama talked about frequent skeet shooting.
The publication asked: “Have you ever fired a gun?”
Obama responded: “Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time.”
The comment caused a stir, as people asked why he had never mentioned the hobby before and why they had never seen photos.
In an interview with CNN on Monday night — before the photo was released — Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said, “If he is a skeet shooter, why have we not heard of this? Why have we not seen photos?”
She then added: “I think he should invite me to Camp David, and I’ll go skeet shooting with him. And I bet I’ll beat him.”
President Obama called on Congress to work together and come up with bipartisan ways to pay down the debt and grow the economy.
We began this year with economists and business leaders saying that we are poised to grow in 2013. And there are real signs of progress: Home prices are starting to climb again. Car sales are at a five-year high. Manufacturing is roaring back. Our businesses created 2.2 million jobs last year. And we just learned that our economy created more jobs over the last few months than economists originally thought.
But this week, we also received the first estimate of America’s economic growth over the last few months. And it reminded us that bad decisions in Washington can get in the way of our economic progress.
We all agree that it’s critical to cut unnecessary spending. But we can’t just cut our way to prosperity. It hasn’t worked in the past, and it won’t work today. It could slow down our recovery. It could weaken our economy. And it could cost us jobs – now, and in the future.
President Obama is riding a wave of personal popularity into his second term, with his highest favorability ratings since his first year in office, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Fully 60 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of Obama in the new poll, up slightly from October but a clear shift in opinion from an election year in which his ratings hovered in the mid-to-low 50s. And by 39 percent to 26 percent, the president now has more “strongly” positive ratings than strongly negative reviews, breaking a two-year stretch in which intense opposition was on par with (or higher than) intense support.
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