Former New York Mayor Ed Koch has had an influence in Hollywood as well as the Big Apple. Before coming to City Hall, Mr. Koch spent eight years in the House of Representatives. One of his staffers was Nikki Finke, who went on to become one of the most influential and feared reporters in the entertainment industry and, according to Ms. Finke, her time working with the future mayor in Congress helped inspire her to become a journalist. Read More
In his old age, South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela is apparently doing battle with wine writers rather than oppressive regimes. The Wall Street Journal was forced to run a correction to an article that ran last week about South African wines, which included a mistake about Mr. Mandela’s drink choices. Read More
In his interview on the Brooklyn GOP Radio podcast this evening, NRA President David Keene was asked about the controversial articles on Gawker and in the Journal News that contained lists of gun owners. Mr. Keene blamed the stories on cultural differences that he said exist between “elite media” and the rest of American society.
“The whole battle over the Second Amendment has little to do with crime or any of these things” Mr. Keene said. “It has to do with culture and the view that different people have about what kind of a country this ought to be.”
Mr. Keene explained that he believes the media has adopted an anti-gun perspective because liberal reporters see gun ownership as antithetical to their values. Read More
Speaker of the House John Boehner is taking heat from all sides for delaying the decisive vote on the post-Hurricane Sandy federal aid package. Even his fellow Republicans have blasted Mr. Boehner. Many of the local Democrats who jumped into the fray used the motif of the famous 1975 Daily News cover that implied Gerald Ford told the city to “drop dead” when he vowed to veto federal aid to the five boroughs in their assessments of Mr. Boehner’s conduct. Mayoral candidate Bill Thompson explicitly credited his source material in his shot at Mr. Boehner.
“The decision by House Speaker John Boehner to postpone a vote on Hurricane Sandy aid for the New York region is a travesty of epic proportions,” Mr. Thompson said in a statement. “The move is reminiscent of the famous newspaper headline from the 1970’s when the federal government refused to help New York City in a time of need. ‘Boehner to City: Drop Dead’ is an appropriate headline for the Speaker’s actions.” Read More
Putnam County doesn’t want to help the Journal News newspaper with its map of gun owner’s home addresses. To make the controversial map, the newspaper used addresses obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request for pistol permit records from Westchester and Rockland Counties. They made a similar request in Putnam, but County Executive MaryEllen Odell and County Clerk Denis Sant plan to announce their decision not to release the records at a press conference this afternoon. Read More
Over the weekend, The Journal News newspaper published maps with the addresses and names of pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland Counties. The information for the map was legally obtained by the paper through a Freedom of Information Act request, but it sparked a nationwide controversy among those who considered the map a privacy violation. This morning, State Senator Greg Ball weighed in by proposing legislation to keep gun records private and prevent the publication of similar stories in the future. He also blasted “the asinine editors at The Journal News” who published the map.
“The asinine editors at The Journal News have once again gone out of their way to place a virtual scarlet letter on law-abiding firearm owners throughout the region. The immediate elimination of the information posted on the Journal News website is the only way we can ensure the safety and liberty of these New Yorkers,” said Mr. Ball in a statement. “This is clearly a violation of privacy, and needs to be corrected immediately. The same elitist eggheads who use their editorial page to coddle terrorists and criminals are now treating law-abiding citizens like level three sexual predators.” Read More
Former Republican presidential candidate blasted the New York Times on the website of his online TV network today in a column that claimed the paper put on “a white sheet and hood” by publishing an editorial that was critical of black Republicans on Wednesday. The Times article, which was written by University of Pennsylvania political science professor Adolph Reed Jr., was entitled “The Puzzle of Black Republicans” and argued “modern black Republicans have been more tokens than signs of progress.”
“It’s a shame the New York Times is such a racist newspaper,” Mr. Cain wrote in his response. Read More
Bill de Blasio has had enough of Andrea Peyser.
The New York Post columnist once again slammed the public advocate in a column today, claiming the mayoral candidate is “daring the media” to write about his wife’s past as a lesbian activist and that he is “protesting way too much.” Read More
Comedian Stephen Colbert has made a tongue-in-cheek push for South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to appoint him as the Palmetto State’s senator now that Jim DeMint is leaving the job to work at the Heritage Foundation. This afternoon, Ms. Haley responded to The Colbert Report host’s campaigning and high poll numbers by releasing her findings from “vetting” Mr. Colbert.
“Mr. Colbert, clearly a whole lot of people felt you needed a second look for U.S. Senate, and because I believe in doing my full due diligence … this is what our vetting process came back with,” Ms. Haley wrote in a post on Facebook that included a link to a document containing information about Mr. Colbert. Read More
In a new interview with Yosef Rapaport of the Orthodox Jewish news site Vos Iz Neias, mayoral candidate Bill Thompson answered the question that has dogged him throughout his campaign–whether he lacks the enthusiasm necessary to win among a crowded field of rivals. Mr. Thompson argued he ran “an energetic campaign” when he came in just behind Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2009 and the perception he’s not fired up came from unfair press coverage rather than any lack of enthusiasm on his part. To prove his point, Mr. Thompson pointed out one event he attended where his “energy level” was “very high.”
“I’ll give you an example, I was in Downtown Brooklyn at an event in the campaign in 2009, there were press people there. The mayor had been there before and gotten a very lukewarm response, I showed up the crowd…was incredibly enthusiastic,” Mr. Thompson said in his typically methodical manner. “Both the crowd and my energy level, very high. I didn’t get to read about that or see that anywhere….You never read about it.” Read More
