Category: News and Opinion

Cuomo Bullshit Watch (Part 832):

It seems like only yesterday that Jay Walder left his post as Chairman of the MTA, and I wrote a sarcastic “job posting” for his replacement. The job of the MTA Chairman, I asserted, was to preside over the re-destruction of the metro New York mass transit system, and eventually therefore its economy, while shielding those responsible for it from blame and providing rationalizations. At first by denying it was occurring, and then by taking the blame for it. It is no surprise that like Jay Walder, Joe Lhota has decided to leave that job to someone else.

So this time I’m going to say what the job of the MTA Chairman actually should be, given the situation that has been created by the decisions, non-decisions and deals of the past, if the transit system – or at least some weaker, worse version of it, is to be saved. The job of the MTA Chairman should be to tell people to go to hell. The transit unions, the riders’ advocates, the construction unions and contractors, taxpayers, the state legislature, the City Council, the Mayor and even the Governor. To always bring up the past when discussing the future. As in “you or those who preceded you decided to hand out these benefits to your interest group then, and shift the cost to a future that has now arrived. And any attempt to avoid your share of the resulting pain now is simply a social injustice against everyone else.” The job would consist of a desperate, angry battle with no friends and as many enemies as possible, a constant and much resented attempt to break down any sense of entitlement. That is what would be required to save not only the mass transit system, but also any other institution, in the public or private sectors, in the wake of Generation Greed.

I finished this story on 12/27/12 (and, except for the Postscript, it should be read as if it was posted on that date). Unfortunately, the story was originally illustrated with photos, and no one, including the owners of this site, seems to be able to post them in their proper place in the story (or at all).

Can anyone explain to me why the man who managed Andrew Gounardes' State senate campaign against Marty Golden is now working for a Mayoral candidate who helped Golden get elected to the Senate in the first place?

Unless Ben, Gur or EnWhySeaWonk answer my pleas to post my holiday story about my family “temporarily” adopting a cat left homeless by Sandy (which I can’t manage to post, because it contains photos), and barring any late breaking news that cannot be ignored, this will be my last post of the year. This will also be

In the end of the ugly exercise in reciprocal intellectual bankruptcy that was this year’s 15^th SD Senate race, incumbent Joe Addabbo beat Councilman Eric Ulrich 42,187 (57.57%) to 31,036 (42.36%), with 51 write-in votes going to others (which shows remarkable restraint on

This summer at the Democratic National Convention, Jerry Nadler buttonholed me and started a conversation which he began by saying “On December 31, 2010, you wrote…”

Nearly a month later than normal, this Department begins its review of NYC’s November election results with a look at Bay Ridge.

On December 28, the NYC Board of Elections finally certified and published the returns for the election held on November 6^th, only 27 days after its legal deadline to do so.

I was having such a good time at Lori Knipel's holiday party, to which virtually every candidate for City wide office had made a pilgrimage (I'd seen three mayoral candidate by the time I left, and there was still more than an hour to go), but, against my better judgment, I left to make the trek to Italian Williamsburg's