Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg visited Washington DC joined by Senator Charles Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to ask for fiscal help from the federal government for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.
In New York City, the public and private losses caused by Hurricane Sandy, which were not covered by private insurance come to $15.2 billion. New York City’s recovery is vital to America’s continued economic recovery and growth.
Read the Mayor’s remarks delivered yesterday at the U.S Capitol Building at http://on.nyc.gov/UdLnVc.
Highlight from the remarks: “We haven’t waited for the help that we hope to get from Washington to come, but given the scale and the impact of the storm, Federal assistance is clearly warranted.”
115k signatories petitioned the White House to ask that Texas be allowed to secede from the United States
24k signatories petitioned the White House to demand deportation for Americans who sign secession petitions
(Source: forbes.com)
Sweet burn! #amercia
Yelp, you clever bastards. (some context, since some of you were confused last time we brought up this topic)
Amercia: Where we get it right on the second try. (original post)
New song of the day: A huge-sounding kitchen-sink track along the lines of his previous songs “The Crystal Cat” or “Red F,” Dan Deacon’s newest song “Lots,” from his forthcoming difficult-to-Google album “America,” certainly lives up to its name. The album comes out August 28.
State of the Union 2012: Breaking down the language
The National Post’s graphics team looks at key words and how many times they’ve been used in State of the Union addresses going back to 2001:
Obama, circa 2012: More American than Bush.
I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that’s the America millions of Americans believe in. That’s the America I love.Mitt Romney • Employing, in a stump speech, one of the most laughably overwrought and saccharine lines we’ve heard from the world of politics. This sort of canned rhetoric is especially damaging to Mitt Romney in a way that it wouldn’t be for a Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul or Rick Santorum, reason being that Romney has a habit of painstakingly inserting, verbatim, the same lines (schmaltzy as they may be) into almost every appearance he has. GOP debate? Better say America needs to lead the free world while the free world leads the whole world. Post-primary pump-up speech? Better start quoting “America the Beautiful.” It adds up to foster the very impression Romney can’t afford — that of tone-deafness, and of overly produced, focus-group tested patter. source (via • follow)
An unnecessary apology? Yesterday, a post over at America Blog noted that “Keep America American,” a phrase Mitt Romney sometimes uses while campaigning, is also a slogan once used by the Klu Klux Klan. Now, while this is embarrassing for the Romney campaign, it’s probably not an intentional effort by Romney to co-opt the KKK’s message, or pander to the group’s base. That is, it’s almost certainly just an unfortunate coincidence. What’s odd, though, is that hours after reporting on the story, MSNBC felt the need to issue an apology. But why? We missed MSNBC’s original report, but as you can see above, Chris Matthews specifically apologizes for “report[ing] on a blog item that compared a phrase used by the Romney campaign to one used by the KKK way back in the 1920s.” But…the phrase was used by both groups. It’s a fact. MSNBC doesn’t dispute this. So why was it, in Matthews’ words, “irresponsible,” and indicative of an “appalling lack of judgement,” for the network to point it out? Can someone who saw the original report shed some light on this? source
americans are funny. At least, that was the conclusion drawn from a survey by social networking site Badoo (who?), in which 30,000 people in 15 countries were asked to name the world’s funniest citizens. Americans came out on top, with Spaniards and Italians taking second and third, respectively. But wait—what exactly did they mean by “funny?” Was it in a, “That joke was hilarious!” sort of way, or a “You have toilet paper stuck to your shoe and nobody’s telling you” sort of way? We don’t know, so we’re not sure whether or not Americans should rejoice at this news. Similarly, should Germany be proud or embarrassed that they came in dead last? source
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