Of course you should use silverware when you're eating dinner at a restaurant that has provided silverware, right there next to your non-paper plate. Nobody believes otherwise. But here's our important new populist debate about whether New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is too fancy because he used a fork and knife to eat a pizza dinner in a sit-down restaurant.
The sun is out over Manhattan now, after the darkness of the winter storm. Yet will the city ever recover? For the first time in decades, New York had to face frozen precipitation without the steadying hand of a right-wing authoritarian or a pragmatic technocrat as mayor. Now, as the New York Post has been warning us, the city is being run by a potentially feckless radical, who cares more about identity politics and fostering class resentment than the nuts and bolts of governance.
[New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio took the oath of office during a public inauguration ceremony at City Hall in New York City on Wednesday. Mayor de Blasio, along with his wife Chirlane McCray, and his children Chiara and Dante, took the subway to the ceremony. In his address, he promised to "leave no New Yorker behind." Image by Seth Wenig via AP]
In a video uploaded to YouTube and promoted by her father’s administration today, Chiara de Blasio, the 19 year-old daughter of mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, confirmed that she has struggled with depression and substance abuse:
Mike Bloomberg likes his privacy. For ten years, the outgoing mayor of New York has refused to disclose when he visits Bermuda to golf, going so far as to hide his private jet from FAA’s public database. He threw a $160,000 hissy fit over releasing emails related to his appointment of Hearst executive Cathie Black, the failed almost-chancellor of New York City’s public schools. So it’s all the more satisfying that his administration’s records—letters, travel logs, internal memos—will soon come under the supervision of his liberal successor—and enormous Bloomberg hater—Bill de Blasio. That’s because of a law Bloomberg himself signed ten years ago.
Down on Canal Street, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio has set up a tent for New Yorkers to "talk transition." Among the activities: Writing your wishes in marker on nametags and slapping them up on the wall. Dodge & Burn's Victor Jeffreys went down to check it out and see what New Yorkers are asking for.
Too cool to pay attention to politics but still need something to talk about at work on Wednesday? Here’s all you need to know about Tuesday's election results.
Bill de Blasio, the Brooklyn Democrat and sitting Public Advocate, was elected the 109th mayor of New York City on Tuesday, carried by a dramatic lead over Republican opponent Joe Lhota and widespread sentiment that the Bloomberg administration had turned against New York’s struggling middle class. The candidate is expected to deliver his victory speech in roughly eight-and-a-half hours before supporters gathered at the Park Slope Armory YMCA.
You might have noticed that Bill de Blasio’s campaign signage features a lot of...red. The muckrackers at the New York Post might have figured out why. Today the tabloid revealed that in 1983—thirty short years ago—the Democratic candidate for New York City mayor visited the Soviet Union with a group of students from NYU, where the candidate was a presidential scholar. Or, as the Post explains:
