New York's Insane Administration Strikes Again

hushicho:

So did you hear about New York’s newest genius idea to benefit society? You know, after their closing of thousands of homeless shelters to help the homeless and banning soda containers above a certain size to stop obesity forever.

In a comparably asinine move, they’re trying to get online games to ban people on their sex offenders list. If you’re tempted to say ‘good’ or something like that, let me just point out that you can be put on that list for any of the following:

- public urination, even if there are no facilities available;

- reaching the age of majority, say while the both of you are in high school, when your boyfriend or girlfriend is even so little as a day younger;

- someone entering your dwelling uninvited or even illegally and seeing you in any state of undress;

- someone observing you univited or illegally and seeing you in any state of undress;

- and, rarely, actual sex-related and actually criminal acts.

And you are on it for life. Unconstitutional? Unquestionably. But it’s been turned into a media buzzword so that ignorant people think they’re doing something proactive and beneficial. People are made to fear sex, sexuality, and the human body more now than possibly ever before thanks to that. A ‘sex crime’ is not necessarily either one of those things. And banning people on the list from online games only isolates them and punishes them indefinitely for doing something that may not have even been wrong, when they were a teenager.

The Supreme Court, in the 60s, set a precedent that nudity does not necessarily equal sex, but that seems ignored today. What are the most powerful weapons in 21st century America? A penis, a vagina, and breasts. Sex and nudity are more regulated than weapons that can, you know, actually kill people.

And the people who actually committed crimes related to sex? I’m not defending them, but is it going to really help to cut off virtual amusement? Harmless entertainment? An outlet that they will now not have? Great idea, cut off imaginary fun time so they have to turn that need, desire, or what have you to the world outside. Great solution, just like the shelters and the soda.

The companies co-operating with New York’s insane band of thugs include THQ, Funcom, NCSoft, Gaia Online, Microsoft, Apple, Blizzard, Warner Bros., Sony, EA, and Disney Interactive. Accordingly, I would like to urge a boycott or, at the very least, a reduction of business to these companies. Please consider whether or not you really need that thing you’re thinking about from these companies, and whether or not it’s worth supporting companies complicit in this kind of unethical, if not outright unconstitutional, action.

This is insane! Is there something in the water in New York?

Hurricane Sandy Aid: FEMA Approves More Than $664 Million For New York Victims

huffingtonpost:

FEMA said Sunday that more than 230,000 New Yorkers have requested assistance since the storm hit. The hardest hit areas of the state include Nassau County, which has received about $224 million. Queens County, which includes the hard-hit Rockaways, has received $170 million.

guardian:

Nor’easter chills New York and New Jersey with snow and high winds - in pictures

As the clean-up continues in the wake of hurricane Sandy, a winter storm brings further misery to residents of New York and New Jersey

Photograph: Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

theatlantic:

The New York Marathon’s Generators Could Power 400 Homes in Staten Island (But They Won’t)

[Image: New York Post]

Fired' GOP Operative Sproul's Companies Appear Still Hard at Work for GOP; Members of Congress Seek Explanation in Election Fraud Investigation

When the RNC then publicly claimed to have “fired” Sproul’s new company, after the fraudulent forms came to light, it’s likely that the RNC also knew full well that many of their state GOP affiliate organizations were still quietly employing Sproul’s firms for partisan work in a number of other states.

[…]

Perhaps even more disturbing is the evidence suggesting that his companies are still operating in states around the country under different names. That, despite the RNC’s claims to have “severed our relationship” with Sproul, and the assertion that they “acted swiftly and boldly” to cut ties with the group only after the allegedly fraudulent registration forms came to light in Florida (and as Democratic registration forms were also alleged to have been destroyed by Strategic workers in other states, such as Colorado and Nevada.)

[…]

Shortly after the GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal first broke late last month, $430,000 in payments from the California Republican Party made to “Grassroots Outreach, LLC”, a firm which shared the same corporate Tempe, AZ address as Sproul’s companies Sproul & Associates and Lincoln Strategy Groups.

Most of the payments in this election cycle, according to the database, are said to be for “Signature Gathering” (presumably for ballot initiatives, etc.), though $34,000 of those payments are noted to be for “Voter Registration”.

Sproul confirmed to The BRAD BLOG that Grassroots Outreach is, indeed, one of his companies, though he insists the CA database is in error, because, he says, his companies have done no voter registration in the state this year.

[…]

Now, Flynn has uncovered new evidence of another company calling itself “Issue Advocacy Partners”. He documents help wanted ads, some posted as recently as September 26th, mirroring those published previously by Strategic Allied Consulting.

“Similar ads were being posted in other states, namely Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia, New York and New Jersey, for almost identical jobs with another entity, Issue Advocacy Partners,” writes Flynn. “Some of the listings are connected directly to Sproul’s Lincoln Strategy Group. Others use Sproul’s Tempe, AZ, business address for contact information.” [Update: Since original publication this morning, Flynn writes in to note that Issue Advocacy Partners has also now “popped up” in Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana as well. “Also,” he adds, “two former supervisors of Sproul’s NC operation have moved to OH, one now hiring ‘Voter Outreach Representatives’”.]

“Some of the ads specifically mention voter registration,” Flynn details, while others use “terms like ‘seeking to hire grassroots canvassers to identify conservative voters’, ‘voter recruiter’, ‘conservative voter identification’, ‘voter ID’, ‘identify conservative voters’.”

One of the ads Flynn found, posted on 9/27 and since removed, reads: “Issue Advocacy Partners is a conservative organization working to register voters as well as remind voters to vote conservatively in the upcoming election.”

[…]

From the evidence detailed above, it’s clear that, despite the RNC’s claim to have cut ties with Sproul, and his own originally unqualified assertion that he and his companies were not “still work[ing] for the RNC or other state or local parties,” there is a great deal of evidence that his operations are still working on behalf of Republicans in California and Oregon under the name Grassroots Outreach, and in Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia, New York and New Jersey under the name Issue Advocacy Partners.

[…]

Last week, three ranking members of high profile U.S. House committees sent a letter to RNC Chair Reince Priebus, seeking more information about the RNC’s work with Sproul. It was signed by Democratic Reps. Charles Gonzalez, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Elections; John Conyers, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee; and Elijah Cummings, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight & Government Reform.

The letter, which cites reports on this matter by The BRAD BLOG in a number of its footnotes, details the Republican Party’s “unfortunate history of voter suppression” and its “Years of illicit and unethical behavior” which “led to the 1982 consent decree under which the RNC agreed to ‘refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities’ or anything else that might ‘deter qualified voters from voting’.”

“Despite your party’s requests over the past thirty years, federal courts have repeatedly declined to lift that decree,” the letter to Priebus continues. “The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on December 13, 2010, pointed to violations as recent as 2004 and found no evidence of ‘any significant change that renders prospective application of the Decree inequitable.’”

occupywallstreet:

Occupy Wall Street: One Year Later - Want to get caught up on the movement? Take a look at this video, highlighting last week’s actions as well as the many things we’re working on.

Nine passers-by were also wounded, and it seems almost certain that some or all were accidentally hit by the police. This isn’t surprising; it’s only in movies that people are good shots during a violent encounter. In 2008, Al Baker reported in The Times that the accuracy rate for New York City officers firing in the line of duty was 34 percent.

And these are people trained for this kind of crisis. The moral is that if a lunatic starts shooting, you will not be made safer if your fellow average citizens are carrying concealed weapons.

Gail Collins writing about yesterday’s shooting at the Empire State Building (via wisconsinforward)

City Declines to Defend NYPD's Anthony Bologna in Pepper-Spray Lawsuit - WSJ.com

New York City has distanced itself from a high-ranking police official accused of firing pepper spray at Occupy Wall Street protesters, taking the unusual step of declining to defend him in a civil lawsuit over the incident.

Odin's B-Log: Billionaire Mayor Bloomberg Sues to Keep New Yorkers' Wages Low

oldenough2burmom:

abaldwin360:An effort to keep many New Yorkers living in poverty from the mayor who made billions selling Bloomberg boards to Wall Street. No wonder he has used his police to beat the hell out of protesters.

The world’s 20th richest man declared recently that a living wage bill passed (over his veto) by New York’s city council was the next best thing to Communist central planning. Michael Bloomberg, who’s also made news recently trying to ban large sodas, today took the next step…

Republican Congressman Blasts GOP: Party Caters To ‘Extremes,’ Is ‘Incapable Of Governing’

abaldwin360:

Congressman Richard Hanna (R-NY) is fed up with the GOP.

Hanna singled out Michele Bachmann’s “suggestion that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin be investigated to see if she has ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood” as an example of a party that has gone off the rails.

The Syaracuse Post-Standard has the story:

“I have to say that I’m frustrated by how much we — I mean the Republican Party — are willing to give deferential treatment to our extremes in this moment in history,” he told The Post-Standard editorial board.

…“We render ourselves incapable of governing when all we do is take severe sides…” he said. “If all people do is go down there and join a team, and the team is invested in winning and you have something that looks very similar to the shirts and the skins, there’s not a lot of value there.”

…“I would say that the friends I have in the Democratic Party I find … much more congenial — a little less anger,” he said.

BuzzFeed reports that Hanna is not alone and “moderate members of the House GOP conference feel that Boehner, who has struggled with an often raucous and openly defiant right wing, has forced them to go along with conservative demands but has provided them little in return.”

This isn’t the first time that Hanna, who was first elected to Congress in 2010, has been critical of the Republican party. At at women’s rights rally in March he advised the crowd to “contribute your money to people who speak out on your behalf, because the other side — my side — has a lot of it.”

source

It’s great to see one of their own who is actually still holding office to speak out, usually it’s “former GOP bla bla bla” that does it.

Nothing is going to change in the party until they stop catering to extremist voters and start shouting down those in their party who do in much larger numbers.