Author Topic: Bill in the China Shop: ‘We Won’t Wait, We’ll Do It Now’ By John Fund  (Read 731 times)

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http://www.nationalreview.com/node/367374/print

 NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE         

January 2, 2014 12:00 AM
Bill in the China Shop: ‘We Won’t Wait, We’ll Do It Now’
De Blasio’s inauguration was a left-wing celebration.
By John Fund

New York City — We all knew we were in for something completely different when the inauguration of self-described “progressive” Bill de Blasio as New York’s mayor began with a keynote from pro-Communist activist Harry Belafonte.

The 86-year-old singer has a history of extremism. He has been an infamous house guest of Fidel Castro, called Colin Powell and Condi Rice “house slaves” of the Bush administration, and last year compared the free-market Koch brothers to the Ku Klux Klan.

“We will be no longer a divided city,” he proclaimed as he compared today’s New York to a “Dickensian” nightmare, as departing mayor Mike Bloomberg looked on stone-faced. “We can become America’s DNA for the future.”

He was followed by the Reverend Fred Lucas Jr., whose talk was dominated by slavery metaphors and analogies. He compared New York’s five boroughs to a “plantation” and managed to cram into his short speech other references to slavery, such as “shackles,” “bondage,” “auction blocks,” “the Emancipation Proclamation,” the “Civil War,” and the “Reconstruction Era.”

It was almost a relief to then hear Letitia James, a former Legal Aid Society lawyer who is now the city’s new public advocate. She railed against “a gilded age of inequality,” “stop-and-frisk abuses,” and “land grabs for more luxury condos.” (There’s actually some truth in that last phrase.)

Bill Clinton then rose and tried to strike a little balance. But the crowd was having none of it. When he praised retiring mayor Bloomberg for leaving New York “stronger and healthier” after twelve years in office, there was dead silence.

The cheers were saved for de Blasio, who proclaimed a “new progressive direction” that will “take dead aim at the ‘Tale of Two Cities’” injustices he emphasized in his campaign.

He then recited the key elements of his platform: affordable-housing projects, an end to hospital closures, reform of the “broken” stop-and-frisk policy, and a tax on upper-income earners. After each item, he would say, “We won’t wait, we’ll do it now.”

Not content with promoting his own agenda, he had to take swipes at something called the “far right,” which he zinged for its agenda of “trickle-down economics” and giving “more to the most fortunate.” Luckily, much of de Blasio’s fiscal program will need approval from New York governor Andrew Cuomo and state legislators — who, for all their faults, don’t appreciate the “Bill in the China Shop” approach of the new mayor.

Noah Rothman, a writer for Mediaite.com, was taken aback by the tone and tenor of the speeches. He tweeted that “MSNBC [is] really missing a branding opportunity here. . . . We’re swearing in a new prime time host.” Indeed, we can only thank the schedulers for at least sparing us from having MSNBC’s Al Sharpton at the podium.

The speeches finally over, the crowd went into City Hall to celebrate the arrival of the New Progressivism. I noted that Bertha Lewis, the former national head of the scandal-ridden ACORN “community-organizing” group, was an honored guest. Last fall, the New York Post reported that, according to a Democratic insider, ACORN had long sought to put de Blasio into the mayor’s office. “Without exaggeration, ACORN’s long-range plan since 2001 was to elect de Blasio mayor,” the insider said. “De Blasio was a big ACORN project.”

For his part, de Blasio has always stood by ACORN, releasing a statement during last fall’s campaign that said: “Bertha Lewis is one of the city’s most passionate and effective progressive leaders, and I’m proud to have worked with her for years.”

He will almost certainly be working with her and all her friends for the next four years.

As Bette Davis said in the film All About Eve: “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
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Offline mountaineer

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Bill Clinton then rose and tried to strike a little balance. But the crowd was having none of it. When he praised retiring mayor Bloomberg for leaving New York “stronger and healthier” after twelve years in office, there was dead silence.
Bubba then tapped the microphone and said, "Is this thing on? Whew! Tough crowd!"
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Offline mountaineer

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Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!

Mayor de Blasio’s inaugural guests took turns beating up on former Mayor Mike Bloomberg at City Hall Wednesday — even calling his reign a “plantation” that callously ignored New York’s hungry children.

With the ex-mayor seated just feet away, in the front row of the dais, performer and civil-rights icon Harry Belafonte launched the first shot by calling the city’s justice system “Dickensian” thanks to Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk policy — an apparent reference to de Blasio’s “Tale of Two Cities” campaign theme.

“New York alarmingly plays a tragic role in the fact that our nation has the largest prison population in the world,” he said, without mentioning that incarceration rates in the city had plummeted by 36 percent since Bloomberg took office in 2002.

Sanitation Department Chaplain Fred ­Lucas Jr. prayed that God free New Yorkers from the “shackles of partisan politics” and “political correctness,” and then went on to refer to the city as a “plantation.”

“Let the plantation called New York City be the city of God, a city up on a hill, a light shining in darkness,” he said.

And Public Advocate Letitia James bragged that the city’s Democratic victories were “inevitable” because of current conditions. “The policies that made [the struggling class] voiceless must give way to a government that works for them, that speaks for them, that cares more about a child going hungry than a new stadium or a new tax credit for a luxury development that a majority of New Yorkers can’t ­afford,” James said.

She added that “we live in a gilded age of inequality where decrepit homeless shelters and housing developments stand in the neglected shadow of gleaming multimillion-dollar condos.”

She later insisted her rhetoric “wasn’t personal.”

At one point, James held hands with her new “BFF,” Dasani Coates, a 12-year-old girl The New York Times profiled in a week-long series about homelessness.

Bloomberg appeared to grimace through much of the ceremony and endured faint boos from the crowd when he was introduced. His successes were virtually ­ignored until former President Bill Clinton finally acknowledged him an hour into the program.

“I also want to thank Mayor Bloomberg, who has committed so much of his life to New York City,” Clinton said, as Bloomberg mouthed the words, “Thank you.”

“He leaves the city stronger and healthier than he found it,” Clinton added. De Blasio followed, acknowledging Bloomberg’s “incredible commitment” and noting his crisis management and environmental stewardship.

Many New Yorkers watching the inauguration bristled at the Bloomberg bashing.

“I find these speakers offensive,” Brooklyn Democratic district leader Betty Ann Canizio tweeted. “It appears to be reeking of racism. Didn’t know we had a plantation.”
New York Post

New Yawkers are in for a world of hurt.
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Online Fishrrman

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[[ For his part, de Blasio has always stood by ACORN, releasing a statement during last fall’s campaign that said: “Bertha Lewis is one of the city’s most passionate and effective progressive leaders, and I’m proud to have worked with her for years.” ]]

Hmmm... will Bertha become de Blasio's personal "Valerie" ??

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I guess he wasted no time stopping the horse drawn carriages in Central Park.
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

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Stunning.  My despair for us as a viable nation deepens.
There are some among us who live in rooms of experience we can never enter.
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Offline sinkspur

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New York City could sink into the East River and the populace in flyover country wouldn't give it  a second thought.

Pretentious, arrogant, chip-on-the-shoulder residents who look down their noses at what they perceive to be the bottom-dwellers to the West.

Enjoy watching elbows, shoesoles and assholes of those getting the hell out of "the city that never sleeps."
Roy Moore's "spiritual warfare" is driving past a junior high without stopping.

Offline sinkspur

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It's quickly becoming apparent that if you're not bi-racial, or some dark ethnic, or a fanook, or an advocate for claiming wealth you didn't earn for yourself, you're on the outside looking in in Obammy's America.

I'm ready to stop looking in.  Let's put a fence around this bunch and call it a zoo.
Roy Moore's "spiritual warfare" is driving past a junior high without stopping.

Oceander

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Stunning.  My despair for us as a viable nation deepens.

I wouldn't.  NYC is sui generis and is, essentially, doing nothing more than returning to its roots, the ooze that Giuliani found it in so many years ago.  The interesting thing to watch will be the degree to which the only money-source for NYC - Wall Street - starts moving out of the city; once you're out of NYC you no longer pay NYC local income tax (provided you're not stupid enough to maintain an apartment for certain "affairs").  Traders and capital are much more mobile than they were the last time NYC had a committed socialist as mayor, so it'll be interesting to see how many of them decide not to stick around this time.

Offline Cincinnatus

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Poor Aligncare. My heart goes out to him and it's not just a matter of money. An administration like this will give a green light to the worst social elements since its internal ideology has it they are the way they are due to the conditions imposed by others and, besides, they are entitled to retaliate for past injustices.

NYC is about to become a most unsafe place, particularly for anyone who shows signs of success, especially white people, if I don't miss my guess.
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