And after losing an election to the most controversial and unpopular candidate in American history, Hillary Clinton is going back to school.
The New York Post is reporting, citing sources close to the Clinton camp, that the former Secretary of State is in talks to accept a professorship at Columbia University in Morningside Heights.
“She’s been in discussions about a professorship, but nothing has been locked down,” a friend of the ex-secretary of state said Thursday.
As the Post reports, the Ivy League university in upper Manhattan has been a friendly landing pad for other Democrats who have lost elections. Al Gore became a professor at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism a year after losing the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. And the school hired former mayor David Dinkins after he lost his re-election bid to Rudy Giuliani in 1993.
The former mayor told the Post that he’d be happy to see Clinton in Morningside Heights.
Columbia is familiar territory for the Clintons. The Clinton Foundation once had an office in Harlem. Her professorship would reportedly involve leading seminars about issues she is passionate about. No word yet on whether these will include a thorough deconstruction of the forces that cost her the 2016 election.
The New York City"s transportation system is in trouble. Delays have skyrocketed on the century-old subway system, and several recent accidents have raised safety concerns. Joseph J. Lhota, chairman of The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has called upon the mayor to provide more money to fix the system, recently outlining a roughly $800 million emergency rescue plan with a sweeping set of fixes that he vowed would turn around steadily deteriorating service.
“We’re here because the New York City subway system no doubt is in distress, and we’re here looking for solutions,” Mr. Lhota said during a news conference at the authority’s headquarters in Lower Manhattan.
Well, it appears Mr Lhota is about to have his wish come true courtesy of "the rich" once again.
Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to push for a tax on wealthy New Yorkers to pay for improvements needed to address the crisis, according to a report from The NY Times.
Mr. de Blasio will announce a so-called millionaires tax on Monday for wealthy New York City residents to pay for subway and bus upgrades.
The proposal also includes funding to offer half-price MetroCards for low-income riders — part of a national movement that is gaining momentum in New York.
“Rather than sending the bill to working families and subway and bus riders already feeling the pressure of rising fares and bad service, we are asking the wealthiest in our city to chip in a little extra to help move our transit system into the 21st century,” Mr. de Blasio said in a statement.
Of course - de Blasio faces an uphill battle for his populist plan to soak the rich just a "little" bit more...
The tax changes would require approval from state lawmakers in Albany - a difficult task, with Republicans in control of the Senate, though the urgency of the subway’s decline has raised the stakes and captured the attention of both parties.
The mayor’s proposal builds on an effort by State Senator Michael Gianaris, Democrat of Queens, to tax the wealthy to support the subway, and a campaign by transit advocates to establish reduced fares for poor residents after a successful program in Seattle.
“I would argue that the M.T.A. is in a full-blown crisis and that would justify our return to Albany to enact this measure in an emergency session,” Mr. Gianaris said.
The new tax would raise about $700 million to $800 million a year, with more than $500 million going toward capital costs for subways and buses and about $250 million for the half-price MetroCard program, city officials said. It would increase the city’s highest income tax rate by about 0.5 percent, to 4.4 percent from about 3.9 percent, for married couples with incomes above $1 million and individuals who make more than $500,000.
City officials estimate that the tax would be paid by about 32,000 New York City tax filers, or less than 1 percent of those who file their taxes in the city. New Yorkers already contribute to the authority through various taxes and fees, and the city has committed $2.5 billion for the agency’s current capital improvement plan.
Anyone else see "the broken subway fallacy" at work here? Still doesn"t matter, the "rich" can afford it right? It"s only "fair",,,
After facing a backlash for his decision to travel to Hamburg, Germany and speak at an anti-capitalist, protester-organized gathering on Friday outside the G-20 conference, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, who’s facing re-election this year, defended his decision, arguing that it’s up to local officials like himself to speak up on issues like climate change now that President Donald Trump has taken the US out of the Paris Accord, Bloomberg reports.
De Blasio, who left NYC the day after NYPD officer Miosotis Familia was assassinated in the Bronx, didn’t publicly disclose his plans to appear as the keynote speaker at the anti-capitalist rally in Germany until just hours before his departure. He left the city as New Yorkers were struggling with a deteriorating subway system, a spike in crime, uncollected bulk trash, an increase in homelessness, and myriad other problems. He also skipped an NYPD swearing-in ceremony for 524 new NYPD recruits, further damaging his already strained relationship with the police.
Yet Hizzoner says it was all worth it to show the people of Germany that not all Americans are like Trump, according to Bloomberg:
“It’s a variation on the concept of voting with your feet,” de Blasio, a Democrat, said in an interview before speaking at the “Hamburg Shows Attitude” protest on Saturday. “While the national governments will probably only make limited progress, the rest of us don’t have that choice. If we make only limited progress we’ll only be going backwards.”
“We almost have Washington as an island at this point, unrepresentative of the views of the American people on many levels, and that’s going to take a different kind of politics to address,” de Blasio said.
Eric Phillips, de Blasio’s spokesman, said the mayor only agreed to go grandstand in Hamburg after making sure he would be able to attend Familia’s funeral, scheduled for July 11. He returns to New York on Sunday. De Blasio, who met Hamburg’s mayor on Friday, tried to spin the trip as a reconnaissance mission to learn more about Hamburg’s renewable energy and early-childhood education programs, though he also said it was also important to make sure people understand President Donald Trump’s views are not shared by all Americans.” Because apparently some within the G-20 have never watched CNN, and think that everyone in the US agrees with Trump?
I"m at the G20 to remind the world that on issues like equality, climate change and more, our cities — and their people — lead the way. pic.twitter.com/t2qyp7mRfy
The organizers of the rally where de Blasio, 56, was to speak distanced themselves from the violent clashes between protesters and police that have broken out at the G20.
Meanwhile, in a trolling of the Mayor, New York City’s Sergeants Benevolent Association kept up its criticism, tweeting that 160 police had been injured during the protests. “Whose side are you on, Mr. Mayor??” the group asked the socialist mayor.
So far 160 police officers have injured by protesters at this year"s G20 summit. Whose side are you on Mr. Mayor?? https://t.co/OB3nG7VByZ
Adding to the insults, De Blasio’s Republican challenger in November’s mayoral election, Staten Island Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, posted an image on Twitter of de Blasio’s face photo-shopped onto a picture of a man in lederhosen sitting in front of tall glasses of beer and a plate stacked with sausage and sauerkraut.
“While #NYC ’s subways crumble, sex crimes increase double digits, litter on streets pile up & the number of street homeless soars... #G20,” Malliotakis wrote.
While #NYC "s subways crumble, sex crimes increase double digits, litter on streets pile up & the number of street homeless soars...#G20pic.twitter.com/JsYoHhHaVG
Meanwhile, Trump"s trip to Germany - in which he established “personal relations” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and achieving a “breakthrough” truce involving the southern de-escalation zone in Syria - appeared more successful, and actually prompted the G-20 to conclude that the 2-day meeting wasn"t a waste, even though during his speech de Blasio voiced his "doubts" that the world leaders could resolve important global issues at the G20 summit. You can watch more below:
The symbolic resistance against Trump"s climate agenda took another step on Friday evening, when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order reaffirming the city’s commitment to the Paris climate change agreement despite, or rather due to, Trump withdrawing the U.S. from the agreement.
— NYC Mayor"s Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) June 2, 2017
“We here in New York City are shocked at the development this week in Washington, D.C., to see the president of the United States pull out of the Paris accord and literally set this nation, and the whole globe, on the path of denial,” de Blasio said.
De Blasio’s order instructs New York City to adopt the principles of the Paris climate agreement, supporting its key principles of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050 and keeping a global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees Celsius. It also directs city agencies to work with the mayor’s Office of Sustainability to create a plan by September 30 to further reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions, and notes that New York City will work with other U.S. cities, states and countries to meet commitments set in the agreement.
I signed Executive Order 26 because New York City"s future is threatened by climate change. We will honor the goals of the #ParisAgreement. pic.twitter.com/ujskQl2q2o
“The actions of President Trump have undermined what we’re doing and what cities and states all over the country are doing, and that means we have to go farther,” de Blasio said. “We have to take matters into our own hands.”
In a series of tweets on Wednesday, de Blasio slammed Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the agreement, calling it “horribly destructive.”
De Blasio joins Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, who also signed an executive order this week affirming his city’s compliance with the Paris agreement.
Furthermore, as reported last night, billionaire and former NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg, announced that he is developing a coalition of U.S. states, cities and business leaders to defy the President"s decision and comply with the terms of the original deal. And yet, considering that Trump won the presidency among other things on the vow to do precisely what he did, and withdraw from the Paris agreement, some have suggested that while global climate trends may a priority for Bloomberg, a man who flies around the world on a fleet of private jets and whose carbon emissions footprint is an "outlier", it is likely safe to say that a majority of Americans, especially those living outside the safe spaces of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, either disagree, don"t feel the urge to be lectured by hypocrites, or simply don"t care.
