They’ve been defacing memorials, defecating on police cars, disrupted local businesses and encouraged the overthrow of capitalism, but there’s no faster way to make New York Mayor Bloomberg completely lose patience than by including on the list of demands… cigarettes:

An Occupy Wall Street protester who scaled a 70-foot art sculpture in Lower Manhattan early this morning demanded a cigarette, a jacket and Mayor Bloomberg’s resignation before the NYPD plucked him from the structure just after 9 a.m.
[...]
Spoelstra initially demanded that 15 percent of staffers on the FDNY and NYPD be bisexual, witnesses said, but then changed his mind and said he wanted 15 of the police officers on scene to leave.

I have a feeling we’re only one demand for salt and some potatoes fried in partially hydrogenated oil away from Bloomberg ordering the City wiped clean of OWS protesters once and for all. Not doing so would be shirking his highest duty.

The guy wasn’t given a cigarette or the Mayor’s resignation, but he will get a jacket, possibly of the “straight” variety:

Dylan Spoelstra, 24, from Toronto, Canada was brought to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation after voluntarily surrendering to the NYPD. His antics ushered in day of several planned Occupy Wall Street marches and rallies which should take place in Manhattan this afternoon — even though Mayor Bloomberg yesterday warned that police are going to start cracking down on the permit-less events.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

What is the government’s number one function? Some might say national security or maintaining a sound infrastructure, but for New York Mayor and legendary super-nanny Michael Bloomberg, the government’s highest duty is to… make sure the people have ready access to salad… or something like that:

Speaking on the government’s role in diet and health last week, Bloomberg told the UN General Assembly, “There are powers only governments can exercise, policies only governments can mandate and enforce and results only governments can achieve. To halt the worldwide epidemic of non-communicable diseases, governments at all levels must make healthy solutions the default social option. That is ultimately government’s highest duty.”

Earlier in his address Bloomberg lauded the past dietary efforts of NYC, “In 2009 we enacted the first restriction on cholesterol-free artificial trans fat in the city’s food service establishments. Our licensing of street green card producer/vendors has greatly increased the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables in neighborhoods with high rates of diet related diseases. And we’ve led a national salt reduction initiative and engaged 28 food manufacturers, supermarkets and restaurant chains to voluntarily commit to reducing excessive amounts of sodium in their products.”

This isn’t surprising. After all, upon being elected to office Bloomberg took an oath to “honor, protect and defend the dietary guidelines set forth by the USDA.”

According to Bloomberg, government’s biggest responsibility is to make sure you eat your veggies, and your biggest responsibility is to make Obama successful. These can be simultaneously achieved by eating your peas literally and figuratively.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

On Al “Resist We Much” Sharpton’s MSNBC show, Mayor Michael “Resist We Salt” Bloomberg said that we must see to President Obama’s success for the sake of the future of our children and grandchildren (apparently in the future the cures for cancer and heart disease will be debt and unemployment checks, respectively).

Transcript from Story Balloon:

“But I think he is our president. And what we have to step back and say is, whether we voted for Barack Obama or not, whether we agree with Barack Obama or not, whether we like Barack Obama or not, he is our elected president. And our success, your children`s success and your grand children`s success depend on he being a good president while he`s in office. You may want to change presidents. You may yourself want to run against him. That`s fine. You can do that in a campaign. But you also have a responsibility as an American to make him be successful because the country is not successful if the president is not successful.”

He went on, but you get the point. If Bloomberg had been interviewed by anybody remotely inquisitive, a good follow-up might have been, “Can you please define ‘successful’?” That and “Do you think there is a difference between respect for the office and blind allegiance?”

If a president’s programs, dealings, morals and ethics — no matter what they are — are automatically in the best interest of America, why bother ever having elections?

Americans having the responsibility to make Obama successful must be why MSNBC has yet to mention Solyndra in any of their prime time programming. You don’t see that level of patriotism much these days:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

It seems like whenever there’s a mass emergency of some sort, the first things that stop working properly are cell phones, but regardless — and like it or not — we’re all going to be on the PLAN:

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A new national alert system is set to begin in New York City that will alert the public to emergencies via cell phones.

It’s called the Personal Localized Alert Network or PLAN. Presidential and local emergency messages as well as Amber Alerts would appear on cell phones equipped with special chips and software.

The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the system would also warn about terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

“The lessons that were reinforced on 9/11 is the importance of getting clear and accurate information to the public during a crisis,” New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Verizon and AT&T, the nation’s largest cell phone carriers, are already on board. Consumers would be able to opt out of all but those presidential messages.
[...]
For now, the alerts are capable on certain high-end cell phones but starting next year, all cell phones will be required to have the chip that receives alerts.

By the end of the year, the new system will be in place in New York City and Washington and in cities around the country by the end of 2012.

Mayor Bloomberg is involved, so how this system is utilized in NYC will depend on his definition of an “emergency” situation…

New Yorkers will be far more likely to get a text like the one above instead of something a little more honest and useful, such as “Whoops, forgot to plow the roads again! Put chains on your tires!”

Bloomberg called PLAN a “quantum leap forward.” It’s no wonder we’re not further along as a civilization. When I was a kid, a “quantum leap forward” would have been something like travel at the speed of light, teleportation or even a cure for cancer — now it’s the ability of the government to send an unblockable text message blast that says “run for your lives!” That’s okay though, because I haven’t been fond of the term “leap forward” since Mao ruined it.

Judging from this New York Daily News online poll question, PLAN has a lower approval rating than Congress:

Somebody smells function creep.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Something tells me that if a politician who actually had a label proposed something like this, he or she would be called anti-immigrant and probably even racist, but Michael Bloomberg often escapes such criticisms because of his concern for the cholesterol level of all of humanity.

New York Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg has a fix for the nation’s immigration debate: Send ‘em to Detroit.

“If I were the federal government,” Bloomberg told David Gregory on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday morning. “Assuming you could wave a magic wand and pull everybody together, you pass a law letting immigrants come in as long as they agree to go to Detroit and live there for five or ten years.”

Detroit has suffered a devastating population loss in recent decades, losing 25% of its citizens since the last census.
[...]
The immigrants would arrive in Detroit, “start businesses, take jobs whatever,” Bloomberg said. “You would populate Detroit over night because half the world wants to come here … You can use something like immigration policy – at no cost to the federal government – to fix a lot of the problems that we have.”

What would those jobs for immigrants forced to live in Detroit be? A huge government stimulus project where immigrants would work building a wall to keep themselves locked in would have to be the first consideration.

Let’s see, so far the Mayor of New York City has conducted gun stings in Arizona, sent NYC’s homeless to other cities, and now he’s proposing sticking immigrants in Detroit. Rudy Giuliani was called “Mayor of the World” but Bloomberg is the one trying to run with the title.

If Bloomberg’s trying to keep immigrants from wanting to settle in New York City, he should just post this picture on the side of every road leading into the City:

(h/t Jammie Wearing Fool)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Is this some kind of No Labels hazing ritual gone horribly awry or something?

If you can handle it, the Daily Mail has a full-size pic along with the back story here. I don’t know about you, but I need some salty snacks, a smoke and a beer with no ice after enduring that.

Here’s Spider Mike in action:

Word is that actual spiders in the building ran for the exits out of sheer embarrassment.

(h/t NY Daily News)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

If talking beer is his way of trying to endear himself to the Irish after his little joke backfire, insulting brewers with the adult beverage equivalent of “ketchup on filet mignon” isn’t any way to go about it:

Standing inside the just-expanded Brooklyn Brewery yesterday, the mayor revealed that his unorthodox approach to drinking beer requires ice.

“I actually put ice in my beer,” the mayor said. “Most people don’t.”

Hearing a gasp from the crowd, he explained: “I know. I’ve always done it. I don’t think it comes from Boston.”

Brewery President Steve Hindy was too polite to set the mayor straight on the correct way to savor his popular suds.

But Julie Johnson, editor of All About Beer magazine, was more than willing to offer Bloomberg some drinking tips.

Rule No. 1: Don’t do what you’re doing.

“Never,” she declared, “if you want to respect the efforts the brewers put into the beer.”

As someone of Irish heritage, the drunk stereotypes I can handle — bring ‘em on, Captain Nolabels — but that is practically unforgivable.

America’s Sodium Cop also orders his iced brew with a hypocrisy chaser:

The odds of Bloomberg following her advice are remote. The mayor’s been known to march to his own taste drummer. He adds salt to just about everything — including pizza.

He’s not concerned for our health — he’s hoarding it all for himself!

(h/t Daniel Foster)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

In the past, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has criticized Arizona’s immigration law from afar, but when it comes to gun law enforcement in that state, he seems to be operating a bit out of his mayoral jurisdiction, don’t you think?

NEW YORK – Weeks after the shooting in Tucson, sellers at an Arizona gun show allowed undercover investigators hired by New York City to buy semiautomatic pistols even after they said they probably couldn’t pass a background check, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday.

“After Tucson, you would think that people, particularly at a gun show in Arizona, would have been much more careful in enforcing the law,” he said. “That unfortunately in some cases wasn’t the case.”

Bloomberg has authorized similar sting operations around the country as part of a push for tougher federal laws to help keep guns off the streets of New York.

In fairness to the newly self-appointed ruler of the Grand Canyon State, he panicked a little because he misunderstood and thought his people told him they were selling “salt weapons” in Arizona.

Lately we’ve heard a lot about “using a tragedy to forward a personal political agenda,” and this is yet another example:

The mayor conceded that most illegal guns in New York City are coming from states along the East Coast, but said the rampage in Tucson would bring national attention to the investigation.

What a Dupnik!

In the meantime, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was unamused:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Big Labor’s Snowmageddon snit fit
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

Diligent English farmers of old once shared a motto about the blessings of work: “Industry produces wealth, God speed the plow.” Indolent New York City union officials who oversee snow removal apparently live by a different creed: Sloth enhances political power, Da Boss slow the plow.

Come rain or shine, wind, sleet or blizzard, Big Labor leaders always demonstrate perfect power-grabby timing when it comes to shafting taxpayers. Public-sector unions are all-weather vultures ready, willing and able to put special interest politics above the citizenry’s health, wealth and safety. Confirming rumors that have fired up the frozen metropolis, the New York Post reported Thursday that government sanitation and transportation workers were ordered by union supervisors to oversee a deliberate slowdown of its cleanup program — and to boost their overtime paychecks.

Why such vindictiveness? It’s a cold-blooded temper tantrum against the city’s long-overdue efforts to trim layers of union fat and move toward a more efficient, cost-effective privatized workforce.

Welcome to the Great Snowmageddon Snit Fit of 2010.

New York City Councilman Dan Halloran, R-Queens, told the Post that several brave whistleblowers confessed to him that they “were told (by supervisors) to take off routes (and) not do the plowing of some of the major arteries in a timely manner. They were told to make the mayor pay for the layoffs, the reductions in rank for the supervisors, shrinking the rolls of the rank-and-file.”

Denials and recriminations are flying like snowballs. But even as they scoff at reports of this outrageous organized job action, the city sanitation managers’ unions openly acknowledge their grievances and “resentment” over job cuts. Stunningly, sanitation workers spilled the beans on how city plowers raised blades “unusually high” (which requires extra passes to get their work done) and refused to plow anything other than assigned streets (even if it meant leaving behind clogged routes to get to their blocks).

When they weren’t sitting on their backsides, city plowers were caught on videotape maniacally destroying parked vehicles in a futile display of Kabuki Emergency Theater. It would be laugh-out-loud comedy if not for the death of at least one newborn whose parents waited for an ambulance that never came because of snowed-in streets.

This isn’t a triumphant victory for social justice and workers’ dignity. This is terrifying criminal negligence.

And it isn’t the first time New York City sanitation workers have endangered residents’ well-being. In the 1960s, a Teamsters-affiliated sanitation workers’ strike led to trash fires, typhoid warnings and rat infestations, as 100,000 tons of rotting garbage piled up. Three decades later, a coordinated job action by city building-service workers and sanitation workers caused another public trash nuisance declared “dangerous to life and health” in the Big Apple.

New Yorkers could learn a thing or two from those of us who call Colorado Springs, Colo., home. We have no fear of being held hostage to a politically driven sanitation department — because we have no sanitation department. We have no sanitation department because enlightened advocates of limited government in our town realized that competitive bidders in the private sector could provide better service at lower cost.

And we’re not alone. As the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan reported: “The largest study ever conducted on outsourced garbage collection, conducted by the federal government in the 1970s, reported 29 to 37 percent savings in cities with populations over 50,000. A 1994 study by the Reason Foundation discovered that the city of Los Angeles was paying about 30 percent more for garbage collection than its surrounding suburbs, in which private waste haulers were employed. A 1982 study of city garbage collection in Canada discovered an astonishing 50 percent average savings as a result of privatization.”

Completely privatized trash collection means city residents don’t get socked with the bill for fraudulently engineered overtime pay, inflated pensions and gold-plated health benefits in perpetuity — not to mention the capital and operating costs of vehicles and equipment. The Colorado Springs model, as city councilman Sean Paige calls it, is a blueprint for how every city can cope with budget adversity while freeing itself from thuggish union threats when contracts expire or cuts are made. Those who dawdled on privatization efforts in better times are suffering dire, deadly consequences now.

Let the snow-choked streets of New York be a lesson for the rest of the nation: It’s time to put the Big Chill on Big Labor-run municipal services.

***

The latest on Big Nanny Bloomberg’s winter woes: Criticism of mayor mounts..

The NYPost now reports that sanitation workers targeted specific neighborhoods for retribution.

Big Nannies of the Year
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

It was a nefarious year for nettlesome nosy-bodies employed by the Nanny State. Here are the top power-grabbers of 2010 who just can’t leave us alone:

– New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Two feet of snow paralyzed trains, buses, plows and emergency vehicles in the Big Apple this week. Perhaps if Bloomberg — the nation’s top self-appointed municipal food cop — spent more of his time on core government duties instead of waging incessant war on taxpayers’ salt, soda, trans-fat and sugar intakes, his battered bailiwick would have been better equipped to weather the storm.

– Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. He proposed meddling mileage taxes, mused about a system to track drivers’ routes, lobbied for high-speed rail boondoggles and promoted a “livability initiative” to limit suburban growth and force dwellers into public transportation. Then America’s driving czar floated a plan earlier this fall to disable cell phones through some kind of centralized government mechanism. LaHood backed off that creepy crusade, but he is still intent on waging war against drivers who choose to use cell phones, entertainment systems and GPS devices on the road. Just last week, the unstoppable control freak proposed a new rule banning truck and bus drivers from any use of cell phones while driving — including emergency calls on hands-free devices. His anti-car agenda is stuck in overdrive.

– The city of Cleveland. The green police in this Midwestern metropolis made headlines in February with an intrusive plan to roll out electronic snooping trash cans — “smart” rubbish bins bugged with radio frequency identification chips and bar codes to monitor residents’ recycling habits. Violators can be fined $100. Federal stimulus money has gone to fund similar programs in Dayton, Ohio. The technology originated in Germany, was adopted by eco-authoritarians in England (where at least 500,000 trash cans are now embedded with snitch chips) and has spread across Europe. Welcome to the age of Bin Brother.

– The city of San Francisco. The city board of supervisors recently took the “Happy” out of McDonald’s Happy Meals by banning all restaurants from serving toys with children’s meals that exceed arbitrary limits on calories, fat, salt and sugar. Even the mayor of the People’s Republic of San Francisco opposes the latest food-control scheme. But the bossy City by the Bay continues to assault consumer freedom with bans on everything from plastic bags to pet sales and soda pop. By executive order this summer, Mayor Gavin Newsom outlawed Coke, Pepsi and Fanta Orange drinks from vending machines on city property. The decree dictates that “ample choices” of water, “soy milk, rice milk and other similar dairy or non dairy milk” must instead be offered. It’s not clear how vendors will be able to circumvent the city’s hostility toward plastic bottles. Maybe beverages will be served straight out of those noxiously trendy reusable cloth bags?

– The architects of Obamacare. After ramming a trillion-dollar package of unconstitutional federal health mandates down our throats, they said children and seniors would be saved, we could keep our doctors, costs would go down, and the economy would be boosted. Reality: Premiums have continued to skyrocket. Insurers nationwide have dropped child-only plans in the individual market. Obamacare taxes forced the AARP to raise its members’ rates. Hospitals have stepped up layoffs and shutdowns. And millions of Americans have only been able to keep their doctors and coverage after their employers, unions or health providers begged the feds for special waivers. Heckuva job, health bureaucrats.

– First lady Michelle Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee. Mrs. Obama first played the anti-childhood obesity card in September 2009, as a rationale for using her office to crusade for taxpayer subsidies supporting her hometown Chicago’s failed Olympics bid. Her argument: Kids would stay fat, lazy and uninspired if the Daley machine didn’t get its share of massive sports corporate welfare.

Next came Mrs. O’s push for the $5 billion expansion of federal child nutrition programs. As I first reported in February 2010, the legislation was a pet project of the Service Employees International Union, which seeks to swell the ranks of dawn-to-dusk year-round public school food service workers who organize under the progressive activist slogan “serving justice, and serving lunch.” In addition to school breakfast and lunch, the kiddie food patrol is now pushing subsidized dinner plans and summer food service to create a “stronger nutrition safety net.”

Nanny State Republican Mike Huckabee, who used his bully pulpit position as Arkansas governor to campaign for Big Government-endorsed “healthier living” in public schools and private life, naturally sided with Mrs. Obama — and took a swipe at Sarah Palin last week for criticizing the White House usurpation of parental responsibility and rights. Huckabee scoffed at the idea that the feds are “trying to force the government’s desires on people.” But school bake sales are already under siege, and Mrs. Obama’s childhood obesity task force has already called for new and dramatic controls on the marketing of unhealthy foods. Did Huckabee miss (or does he agree with) Mrs. Obama’s officious rallying cry on child nutrition: “We can’t just leave it up to parents”?

God save us from more busybody bipartisanship in 2011.

Mayor Bloomberg’s Tip-o-the-Day: Government can and should be in charge of every aspect of our lives — unless they can’t be:

Many roads in Brooklyn and Queens are still not plowed… and residents are frustrated. Mayor Bloomberg says, “We won’t get to everybody every time, we will make mistakes, but yelling about it and complaining doesn’t help.”

But if you saw somebody smoking in a bar I bet Bloomie could have five guys on it in a matter of minutes.

I must confess to being stuck with a sliver of schadenfreude at the sight of somebody who has set himself up as one of the nation’s preeminant government nanny-staters getting visibly frustrated by those who simply think he’s being derelict in his nanny duties. The “government as babysitter, food cop, health guardian and safety patrol” system for which Bloomberg is a proponent does nothing but encourage and reward whining and complaining, so it doesn’t pain me to see him on the receiving end.

If you’re going to bill yourself as the Diaper Changer-in-Chief, you’d better be prepared to sling the Pampers a little more effectively, Professor Nosalt.

Update: For more about Nanny-Mania 2010, don’t miss Michelle’s column today.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Not satisfied with taxing carbon, soda, and salt, Big Nanny NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is sticking government’s nose into yet another area it doesn’t belong — and isn’t needed.

Introducing Nanny Bloomberg’s own taxpayer-backed version of Project Runway!

Really:

You May Be Going To Government-Organized Fashion Events Soon

If Anna Wintour is the queen of fashion, a new king Michael may have just emerged. And no, it’s not Kors—it’s Mayor Bloomberg.

With foreign competition increasing and the internet slowly becoming a convenient and cheaper outlet to obtain goods, Bloomberg has instated six new Manhattan-based fashion initiatives geared towards helping young hopefuls get their foot in the door and offering assistance to emerging talents with potential for growth.
The initiatives, and why Bloomberg cares>>

The first, New York City Fashion Draft, will allow students worldwide to come to the city and meet with companies for purposes of fashion recruitment. Fashion Campus NYC, which is also geared towards industry hopefuls, is a set of business seminars that also covers information about living and working in Manhattan, while New York City Fashion Fellows gives thirty emerging talents in the business end of fashion management access to networking and mentors.

For those more established in the industry, there’s the NYC Fashion Fund and Institute, which provides business assistance for up-and-coming designers and manufacturers, Project Pop-up, an annual competition for creative retail concepts with a possible pop-up store as the end prize, and Designer as Entrepreneur, which, as its name implies, helps designers expand their business knowledge through finance-related seminars.

NYC and New York state don’t have a problem attracting top talent to the city.

The problem is in keeping fashionistas — or any other entrepreneurs — in the high-tax, business-unfriendly environment.

Businessman Tom Golisano outlined the real problem last May when he went Galt:

Politicians like to talk about incentives — for businesses to relocate, for example, or to get folks to buy local. After reviewing the new budget, I have identified the most compelling incentive of all: a major tax break immedi ately available to all New Yorkers. To be eligible, you need do only one thing: move out of New York state.

Last week I spent 90 minutes doing a couple of simple things — registering to vote, changing my driver’s license, filling out a domicile certificate and signing a homestead certificate — in Florida. Combined with spending 184 days a year outside New York, these simple procedures will save me over $5 million in New York taxes annually.

By moving to Florida, I can spend that $5 million on worthy causes, like better hospitals, improving education or the Clinton Global Initiative. Or maybe I’ll continue to invest it in fighting the status quo in Albany. One thing’s certain: That money won’t continue to fund Albany’s bloated bureaucracy, corrupt politicians and regular special-interest handouts.

How did the state get to this point? By spending, spending and spending some more.

Haute couture doesn’t need a government handout. It needs government to do what every wealth producer and creative talent needs it to do to thrive: Get out of the way.

New York Governor David Paterson offered to help find another site for the mosque/cultural center planned near Ground Zero, but it sounds like some of the project’s supporters first want to see what kind of place Greg Gutfeld opens up next door before making a final decision:

“While we have a tremendous amount of respect for our governor, and we are always interested in hearing what our leaders have to say, and what their ideas and proposals are. But this has always been about serving Lower Manhattan,” said proposed mosque developer Sharif El-Gamal.

One prominent mosque supporter also rejected the governor’s proposal.

He says Paterson’s remarks validate the idea that all Muslims are responsible for what terrorists did on September 11, 2001.

(h/t ZIP)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has written an impassioned essay about religious tolerance and freedom as it concerns the debate over the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan.

My assumption that Bloomberg’s “across-the-board religious tolerance” sermon wouldn’t be nearly as passionate if the Westboro Baptist freakazoids wanted to build a church in Greenwich Village notwithstanding, I got to thinking about what Bloomberg would vehemently oppose being erected near Ground Zero.

Any of the following proposals for the site would without a doubt have Bloomberg wetting his William Fioravanti trousers:

Want to present Michael Bloomberg with the ultimate dilemma? Tell him this is the design for the proposed mosque:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Isn’t this the same guy who is all for deporting homeless people out of his city limits?

From Fox News:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is blasting U.S. immigration policy, calling it “national suicide.”

Bloomberg said Tuesday that Arizona would likely be hurt by its new immigration law. It requires authorities to question people about their immigration status if there’s reason to suspect they’re in the country illegally.

Bloomberg says countries that welcome immigrants prosper.

He says the U.S. has had some “disgraceful” and “stupid periods” in which it tried to close its borders.

Added Bloomberg: “Fortunately, sanity prevailed.”

Another one who hasn’t read the law and/or doesn’t care to relay the truth.

If Bloomberg thought for one second that illegals were bringing salt and Marlboros into the country (or smuggling middle-aged white guys unhappy with the health care bill for that matter) he’d send the Empire State’s National Guard down there to stop the insanity in a New York minute.

**Written by guest-blogger Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe