Scumbag NYC mayor failure to fund sanitation department in NYC results in death of a baby girl

[lawodevolution]

and others as snow plows did not clear snow off the streets and emergency workers were not able to get to their destinations.
Meanwhile Bloomberg has enough money to organize and fund an investigation of Arizona gun shows.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/01/04/2011-01-04_blizzard_babys_funeral_highlights_bloombergs_failure_to_effectively_manage_city_.html

"But the primary contributing causes certainly must include the city's failure to clear the streets so the mother could reach the hospital in time."

http://www.vosizneias.com/72224/2010/12/30/new-york-ny-post-sanitation-departments-slow-snow-clean-up-was-a-budget-protest/

"Selfish Sanitation Department bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts —a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned"

Bloomberg cut the budget for the sanitation department but had money to waste on his anti-gun propaganda. From the second article you can see the funding for the sanitation department is an ongoing problem. I suppose for people like Bloomberg the ends justifies the means, so I guess these deaths are acceptable sacrifice for Bloomberg, because it is relatively obvious that if you don't plow the snow off the streets in a city like New York people are going to die before emergency workers can get them to a hospital. We will find out later on that Bloombergs investigation will result in no changes and a lot of wasted money.

I'm wondering how many people have died because of Bloombergs failure to fund necessary services while he was funding his anti-gun propaganda group MAIG and investigations a thousand miles away.

[Brickbat]

1. The crap about "bosses" ordering drivers to plow slowly in protest is a lie.

[Buzz Clik]

4. Is it? How are to determine fact from fiction in this mess?

[Brickbat]

8. There was a thread a couple weeks ago about how the only person saying that "bosses" told plow

drivers to slow down was a Republican city councilman to the N.Y. Post, and that when the city investigated, no one backed up his claims and he himself backed off his rhetoric. I wish I could find it. The search function on this website leaves a lot to be desired.

[lawodevolution]

27. Lots of finger pointing going on. Bloomberg needs to get his cities problems in order before he

ventures outside of his jurisdiction and tries to enfluence politics in Arizona.

[ChazII]

38. Agreed.

Thank you for your voice of reason.

[Swede]

2. Not as many as those that died because of guns.

:shrug:

[lawodevolution]

12. The point is that his anti gun activism doesn't get him anywhere and

In fact brings about more gun proliferation because he pisses off gun owners which results in them buying many guns they would otherwise not buy.

Also there was the event in Nigeria where 500 unarmed villagers were chopped up by machetes. Guns kill and save lives, we have no way of knowing how many lives are saved by guns without putting research into it
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=367990&mesg_id=367990

[shadowrider]

18. So the baby girl is less dead because a gun wasn't used, is that right?

[Swede]

26. I was answering this gun nut's linking the snow storm

to gunshows.

[lawodevolution]

28. Is gun nut like the "N" word for gun owners. I guess you don't understand my heritage and culture

So the natural progression from ignorance is fear and then hate which leads to intolerance, bigotry and the use of disparaging terms against the group you hate. In this case you hate gun owners.

[Swede]

29. No,just gun nuts.

[lawodevolution]

30. Members of the KKK didn't view their bigotry against African Americans to be wrong either.

Bigotry against any culture is wrong, not just bigotry against some cultures

[Swede]

31. You shouldn't be so hard on yourself.

I don't think you calling Bloomberg "scumbag" was meant to be a slur against all Jews.

[lawodevolution]

32. That's a real stretch, I didn't even know he was a Jew but you clearly hate gun owners

[brooklynite]

3. Unrec'd

The "Sanitation Department intentionally failed to plow streets" was a now-discredited story by the New York Post (which actually blamed the Union, not the Sanitation Dept. The primary problem was that the NYCDOT didn't declare a snow emergency (requiring cars get off the roads), and the MTA didn't suspend bus service early enough, resulting in streets blocked by abandoned vehicles that the Sanitation trucks couldn't get around.

[lawodevolution]

5. This is an ongoing problem due to lack of funding but no matter what happened I think Bloomberg

Should have been paying attention to what was going on in NYC and not Arizona

Facts are. Budget cut in NYC to sanitation department. Ongoing problem with getting streets cleared of snow. People die because snow not cleared off streets. Bloomberg has funds to investigate Arizona gun shows that are not under his jurisdiction. Bloomberg funds MAIG.

No amount of justifications or excuses will change the facts.

[brooklynite]

10. The storm was at Christmas...the Arizona gun show was two weeks ago

[lawodevolution]

11. And?

Rather than spending all my money on gifts this Christmas I kept some cash so I could go on a ski trip in January. Imagine if I withheld food money or money to pay electric bills for my ski trip.

[brooklynite]

13. The storm response had -nothing- to do with funding...

...and even if it had, how much would the value of two plane tickets from New York City to Phoenix and a portable camera have stretched the Sanitation Dept.'s budget?

Complain all you want about Bloomberg's attention to the snowstorm; but don't conflate it with budgetary issues.

[lawodevolution]

14. There were cuts in funding to the sanitation department and an ongoing problem

With clearing snow. If the money spent on the investigation could have been used to plow a few streets and save one life it would have been worthwhile for him to not fund his anti gun propaganda. He also funds MAIG.

[brooklynite]

15. Please explain how additional funding would have cleared the streets of blocked traffic

[lawodevolution]

16. Provide a link please about the blocked vehicles or did you make that up

[brooklynite]

19. Read all about it...

"Fifty city buses were still stuck in the snow Wednesday, down from 600 a day earlier. "

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/12/29/outer-boroughs-ask-where-are-the-plows/

"New York police have removed some 1,000 vehicles from just three busily trafficked thoroughfares"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/8229723/Snowpocalypse-New-York-digs-itself-out-of-the-snow-but-travel-delays-continue.html?image=3


"The New York area, where cars abandoned in the middle of the city's snow-clogged avenues stymied cleanup, took the brunt of a storm that meandered across the country over the Christmas weekend before plowing up the East Coast."
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/12/27/snowstorm_coats_east_frustrating_holiday_travel/

Again, I'm not saying the Mayor doesn't deserve blame for taking his eye off the ball, but you haven't shown any convincing evidence (aside from the discredited NY Post story), that funding or cutbacks had an impact.

[lawodevolution]

20. Cars stuck in the snow is an expected result of a snow storm and are movable, why were

They not moved as the streets were being plowed? Still the facts remain as described in a different post in this thread, vehicles stuck in the snow would be an expected complication of a snowstorm and the city is also responsible in moving them, any more excuses?

[Dorian Gray]

36. It's well established

I live in Brooklyn, and many streets were blocked.

[lawodevolution]

23. By hiring the people and buying the equipment necessary to and scheduling them to clear the vehicles

From the road. All that costs money. I'm guessing some of the MAIG money could have gone into this.

[Xenotime]

17. Boomberg has been spending time in AZ shopping for guns

[lawodevolution]

33. And breaking federal laws

[smirkymonkey]

6. Another woman in NYC died due to the fact that emergency vehicles

couldn't get to her home in time because the access road wasn't plowed and impossible to get through. Her family tried in vain to save her (she was having a heart attack) but it was too little too late. They are suing the City of New York.

[BoWanZi]

7. "scumbag" mayor? I dont' think the mayor was driving the plows, the drivers were.

First of all, my whole rant is based up on the allegations that the story is true or has some semblence of truth to it.

Now, why is the mayor at fault? If he was forced to make cutbacks, what right do the drivers have in ignoring their job duties or purposely sabotaging them or poorly executing them.

I don't see that the deaths are the mayor's fault but rather the boss's or the employee's.

[lawodevolution]

9. Because at the same time he funded an investigation of gun shows in Arizona and funds his anti gun

Propaganda group MAIG.

If he'd back off on his culture war against gun owners perhaps he could put more money into clearing snow off the streets. Anyone with half a brain knows that if you don't clear snow off the streets, people are going to die. So he gambled with the lives of people in new York and lost when he threw money into his anti-gun cause instead of getting snow cleared off the streets and paying attention to it so that it was done.

[BoWanZi]

34. I'm no fan of Bloomberg and his anti-gun agenda but still...

... you have failed to explain how Bloomberg himself failed to clear snow or lifted the plow blades. Just because he cut the budget, doesn't give the plow drivers or the bosses a reason to fail to plow the road properly. If the bosses really ordered the drivers to plow improperly or not at all, then it wasn't Bloomberg, but the bosses fault.

[closeupready]

22. He's at fault, in part, because HE'S THE MAYOR. And

I know it's ironic that on a website named Democratic Underground there are many who hate democracy, but how it works is, you vote for mayor and the winner LEADS! And he FAILED at that during the Christmas snowstorm. Further, he claimed that they were doing a terrific job; well, we see what bullshit that was. :mad:

[Luminous Animal]

21. The accusations against the sanition workers are bogus.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/nyregion/28halloran.html

"Mr. Halloran, a Republican of northeast Queens, set off a storm of controversy last month when he said sanitation workers were ordered to divert from their routes and not clear the streets as part of a work slowdown to embarrass Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The councilman has since revised his account, saying the workers were given a more subtle message that they should not work too hard and that they would not be closely supervised.
...

But the two transportation supervisors did not back up his account in interviews with investigators, said two people briefed on the inquiries, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigations are continuing. And Mr. Halloran, a lawyer, has refused to reveal the names of the sanitation workers, citing attorney-client privilege. "

[bunny planet]

24. this story might help shed some ligh

http://www.alternet.org/rss/1/450824/tea_partiers_taken_for_a_ride_by_billionaire_moguls_and_small_time_hustlers

[Toon Me Out]

25. 10th richest guy...

...in America.

[madinmaryland]

35. Un-reccing for comparing thousands of gun related murders to the death of one person under

an unfortunate situation.

Sad, just very sad.

[lawodevolution]

37. so the guns were guilty of the murders?

[madinmaryland]

41. With that logic, my friend, Wayne LaPierre and Charlton Heston have MILLIONS of

murders on their hands.

:eyes:

Oh wait, They DO!

[hedgehog]

39. It is my understanding that a lot of the gun crimes in NYC involve guns purchased out of state

and illegally sold in NYC. I believe the purchase at the Arizona gun show was meant to demonstrate that it is easy to obtain weapons at gun shows that could end up in cities with strict regulations.

[lawodevolution]

40. source? link?

[hedgehog]

42. Glad you asked -

"The federal government’s recent analysis shows that while 420 of the illegal guns recovered in the city had originally been sold within New York State — accounting for the largest single-state total — a majority of the guns had been sold in other states, like Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia."

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/illegal-guns-on-decline-in-new-york/

[lawodevolution]

43. I'm still not sure what this has to do with Arizona and investigating across state lines

Is the job of the FBI not the mayor of NYC. Guns get around on the black market, in Arizona you'll find guns used in crimes that came from other states. Many other states have private sales. Bloomberg picked Arizona in order to exploit the tragic shooting and create pure propaganda

I'm glad the mayor of my city puts money into the emergency services instead of funding propaganda in/of other states