Category Archives: Business

Business, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Mike Bloomberg

92 Comments

…is no Rudy Giuliani:

Michael Bloomberg must have hoped that Sandy would be his own 9/11. A population in shock turned to the mayor in their hour of need. He dominated the airwaves; he issued decrees. He seized the occasion to speak out on the big issues: climate change, endorsing a president. He worked to project an air of authority and calm: the Marathon would go on.

It must have looked for a while as if he had done a Rudy and resuscitated a tired mayoralty, relaunching a national career. Perhaps a cabinet appointment in a second Obama administration, perhaps another shot at an independent presidential campaign.

It is looking less that way by the hour. As the true dimensions of the damage in New York gradually appear, as the death toll mounts and as chaos at the gas stations and devastation in Staten Island undercut the narrative that the city has responded effectively to the challenge, Mayor Bloomberg looks more like the hapless officials of New Orleans than Rudy Giuliani or Chris Christie. The decision to divert badly needed resources to the Marathon looks callow. Big talk about climate change fails to impress; surely if the Mayor was so concerned about climate change he could have invested more time in flood preparations. It’s not the fault of conservative GOP climate skeptics that New York did so little to prepare for the rising sea levels that so trouble the mayor.

Actually, he is starting to look more like a Nagin.

[Update a while later]

The “Stop The Marathon” Facebook page is up. It really is amazing that Bloomberg is doing this when people are suffering on Staten Island, which is always the forgotten borough..

So how’s that Bloomberg endorsement working out for you, Mr. President? It would be pretty funny if, between this and reticence to go to the polls by disaffected Democrats, the Democrats lose in New York and New Jersey. Not to mention Connecticut.

[Update a couple minutes later]

A Staten Island tweet.

[Another update]

Cries for help replaced by a loss of words.

But the marathon must go on.

[Update a couple minutes later]

“The city of New York right now is talking about getting water out of the Battery Tunnel and preparing for a marathon,” U.S. Rep. Rep. Michael Grimm said. “We’re pulling bodies out of the water. You see the disconnect here?”

Hey, get with the program. There’s a marathon to run.

[Update]

It gets even more insane: “If you’re not familiar with SI the Verazzano Bridge is the only ground connection to rest of city. It’s CLOSED for the marathon.”

Maybe they should just secede and join New Jersey.

[Another update]

“I want to go home, but there is no home.”

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Stakes On Tuesday

12 Comments

…here are six of them:

anyone who thinks it doesn’t really matter whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney wins next Tuesday is, to put it bluntly, delusional.

The court is very important, but here’s one that they don’t mention. If Obama is impeached and removed over Benghazi (and anyone who doesn’t think this is a possibility is also delusional), we’ll have a President Biden.

[Update a couple minutes later]

When we deceive:

We are now in a surreal situation in which the administration, its congressional protectors, and the compliant media are all in a no-comment holding pattern until after the election, when the truth will come out, in the same way that Watergate could no longer be suppressed after the 1972 election. It is only a matter of time when those who told initial untruths leak information about who told them to promulgate such unbelievable narratives. And we still do not know exactly why the ambassador was in Benghazi, with whom he was meeting, what exactly was the U.S. doing or not doing in postbellum Libya, and why did Stevens so fear for the safety of his people in a country declared a model of U.S. and allied intervention.

The secretary of state is in a bind. Susan Rice was groomed to replace her, as she prepared to successfully bow out after the reelection of Barack Obama, ostensibly to ready herself for Clinton 3.0. Now she dares not leave, given that in her absence her directorship at State will be scapegoated by the administration and the Obama-fed media. So she stays, as Susan Rice recedes into the background after being used — and subsequently humiliated — in advancing a scripted administration falsehood about the video. Amid this chaos, there will be some officials, who warned of the danger, who knew Libya was not safe, who wanted to send help to our trapped contingent, who did not think the attack came from mere protesters angry over a video, who were enraged by the cover-up, who resented the blame-gaming — and who will ultimately not stay quiet.

If they’re true patriots, they’ll start talking before Tuesday.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

The Nanny State

6 Comments

Yet another problem with it.

The problem with nanny state governance isn’t just that it’s intrusive. It isn’t just that it stifles business with over-regulation, and it isn’t just that it empowers busybodies and costs money. It’s that it distracts government from the really big jobs that it ought to be doing.

Mayor Bloomberg has done an admirable job under great pressure as the city reels from Sandy’s attack. But an ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure. The city needed flood protection for its subways and electricity grid—and it didn’t get it. If the Mayor had spent less time and less of his political capital focusing on minutiae, this storm could have played out very differently.

And the problem with big federal government is that it spends too many resources that aren’t its business, and it resultingly neglects the things that are.