NYC raises cigarette taxes and loses $400 million in 5 years...

I still can't believe anyone still lives in NYC.

Via Daily Caller:

New York is reaping the whirlwind of sky-high cigarette taxes with a wave of smuggling decimating the state’s revenue.
New York holds the dubious honor of having the highest cigarette taxes in country, with the average pack of smokes in New York City costing as much as $10.60.
New York raised taxes on cigarettes to $4.35 in 2010 from $2.75. In total, cigarette taxes have increased by 190 percent since 2006. The sharp rise has resulted in a raft of unintended consequences which are dealing a significant blow to the state’s finances.
New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli reports New York’s revenue from cigarette taxes has plunged by $400 million over the past five years.
Keep on reading…

Tweet of the Day: NYC Police Unions blame Mayor de Blasio for murder of two cops...

The blood of 2 executed police officers is on the hands of Mayor de Blasio.  May God bless their families and may they rest in peace.
— SBA (@SBANYPD) December 21, 2014

Video: NYC protesters chant, "What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!"

This isn't helpful to their cause...

Bloomberg on Brooklyn plea for National Guard: “The NYPD is the only people we want on the street with guns.”

Shocking political correctness and plain stupidity...

The Brooklyn Paper: 

Mayor Bloomberg has snubbed Borough President Markowitz’s impassioned plea to bring the National Guard to Hurricane Sandy-scarred Brooklyn — arguing that approving the Beep’s request would be a waste of federal manpower and turn the borough into a police state.

“We don’t need it,” Mayor Bloomberg said on Wednesday during a press update on the city’s ongoing Hurricane Sandy cleanup. “The NYPD is the only people we want on the street with guns.”

Markowitz demanded the National Guard’s help just an hour before Bloomberg’s press conference, claiming that the NYPD and FDNY are “brave — but overwhelmed” by all the challenges Sandy brought when it visited the borough on Monday night: flooding, power outages, and looting.

“All of our resources have been stretched to the limit,” Markowitz said. “In the name of public safety we need to send more National Guard personnel into Coney Island, Manhattan Beach, Gerritsen Beach, Red Hook, and any other locations.”

Stupid: NYC tries removing trashcans to make subways cleaner

Without trashcans there may be less trash to haul away, but it is all on the ground...

Via NYT:

The evidence has piled beside turnstiles and beneath benches, along subway platforms where riders found nowhere else to place their coffee cups or apple cores and on the tracks where tattered newspapers and crushed bottles seem to have taken up permanent residence. 

Yet despite some riders’ resourceful disposal methods since trash cans were removed from two subway stations last year, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority says the counterintuitive plan has worked: trash hauls have decreased, it said, and the stations are cleaner.[...] 

Nearby, in a narrow alcove between a pay phone kiosk and a vertical beam, riders appeared to have fashioned a rogue receptacle. Detritus piled about three feet high — a mélange of crushed energy drink cans; bottles of water and, in at least one case, vodka; mounds of wrappers and paper cups; and what appeared to have once been a white T-shirt. 

Dilu Chowdhury, 51, who operates a newsstand inside the station, said the surrounding area had become far dirtier in recent months. Customers often ask to use his trash bin. “I take it,” he said of customers’ waste, “but it is not enough.”

Scary: After going after your cigarettes, fatty food and Big Gulp drink, NYC Mayor Bloomberg is zeroing in on your booze...

This nanny state thing is getting serious now...

Via NY Post:

The next city health-care crackdown: alcohol abuse.[...]

The city Health Department will be conducting a massive, 50-question telephone survey of New Yorkers to get a better handle on the level of alcohol abuse in the city.

“We routinely conduct surveys about important health issues to learn more about them, and underage and excessive drinking are serious health issues,” said Health Department spokesman Sam Miller.[...]

“Issues to be explored include behavior patterns around unhealthy alcohol consumption and awareness of existing alcohol-related laws and standards,’’ the department told bidders hoping to conduct the poll.

The poll, which should be completed by the end of September, will “oversample” young adults to make comparisons between 18- to 20-year-olds and 21- to 29-year-olds, health officials said.

The department declined to divulge questions, saying the survey is still in the drafting stages...

Read more here...

Nanny State Alert: NYC Mayor Bloomberg Bans Food Donations To Homeless Shelters Because They Are Too Salty

Via NY Post:

So much for serving the homeless.

The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term “food police” to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless.

In conjunction with a mayoral task force and the Health Department, the Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS can’t assess the nutritional content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans.

For over a decade, Glenn Richter and his wife, Lenore, have led a team of food-delivery volunteers from Ohab Zedek, the Upper West Side Orthodox congregation.

They’ve brought freshly cooked, nutrient-rich surplus foods from synagogue events to homeless facilities in the neighborhood.[...]

Diamond insists that the institutional vendors hired by the shelters serve food that meets the rules but also tastes good; it just isn’t too salty. So, says the commissioner, the homeless really don’t need any of the synagogue’s food.

Keep on reading…

Priceless: Democratic former NYC Mayor Ed Koch Urges Voters to Vote GOP

Apparently, Koch is steamed about Obama's anti-Israel policy.

“I want to put a shot across Obama’s bow,”

(NY Post) — In “a shot across President Obama’s bow,” Democratic former Mayor Ed Koch yesterday urged voters in Queens and Brooklyn to make “history” by voting for the Republican candidate to replace randy ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner in the Sept. 13 special election — as a protest against the White House’s policy on Israel.

Koch — a staunch ally of Israel — said he would “vote for Bob Turner” if the Republican-Conservative candidate backs Israel and opposes cutbacks to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

“If Jewish New Yorkers and others who support Israel were to turn away from the Democratic Party in that congressional election and elect the Republican candidate to Congress in 2011, it might very well cause President Obama to change his hostile position on the state of Israel and to re-establish the special relationship presidents before him had supported,” Koch said in his weekly commentary.

Koch likened the situation to Republican Scott Brown winning the Massachusetts Senate seat long occupied by Ted Kennedy.

“I want to put a shot across Obama’s bow,” Koch said in an interview.

Communism in NYC (video)

Yes. There are communists here in the U.S. They prefer to be called progressives.

Specter of Communism in NYC

(BBTV)- A look at the growing Marxist movement in New York City. Even though they read Marx and Stalin, organize protests against Israel and play a board game that equates capitalism with barbarism, they shy away from calling themselves “socialist”. As one member puts it, “It’s more positive to say progressive or left.”

Video: CNN Suggests Foreclose As NYC Bomber Motive. Ignores Training at a Terror Camp in Pakistan.

CNN anchors discuss foreclosure as a possible motive for the attempted bombing in Times Square. They ignore the fact Pakistani Taliban have claimed credit and Faisal Shahzad is a former Pakistani citizen who has admitted he attended a terror training camp in Pakistan.

“It can confirmed that his house has been foreclosed in recent years. I mean, one would have to imagine that brought a lot of pressure and a lot of heartache on that family.”

CNN already making excuses for NYC bomber (video)


It's just like CNN to spin Faisal Shahzad as anything, but another Islamic Jihadi. CNN has a large Arab viewership. Now you know why many people refer to CNN as "al CNN."