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De Blasio Guilt-Trips New Yorkers In Hopes They'll Be Nicer To Him
By
Nathan Tempey
Published Apr 26, 2015
Modified Apr 8, 2018
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By
Nathan Tempey
Published Apr 26, 2015
Modified Apr 8, 2018
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Another day, another de Blasio speech to a Midwestern audience on issues only tangentially relevant to his duties as mayor of New York City. This weekend, Hizzoner is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin addressing the state's Democratic Party about how much their Republican governor stinks.
But first, Park Slope's dadliest offered an icebreaker that doubled as a passive-agressive plea for New Yorkers to be nicer to him when he's out in public. (It also inadvertently drew attention to his absence from this weekend's epic subway series.)
He said, according to a Mayor's Office transcript:
I had the pleasure of taking in a Brewers game with [Milwaukee] Mayor Tom Barrett last night. I was struck by how many people kept coming up to the mayor to thank him for his service, and to offer good wishes.
I got to quite a few baseball games in my city of New York, and I gotta admit - the reception isn't always that cordial. People recognize me all right - but often times our exchanges are limited to a few choice words…or even a particular finger!
De Blasio went on to blast union-busting, presidential-nomination seeking Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at length (punctuation and capitalization are preserved from the original transcript):
Right now, Wisconsin has a governor who seems to live in an alternate reality.
Elected and re-elected by peddling a series of falsehoods, he told you teachers were the enemy, unions were the problem, and that government/progressive ideas were the roadblock.
He told you up was down, and down was up. And as a result, Scott Walker is pulling Wisconsin backwards.
You see, Governor Walker is part of a dangerous breed of Republicans…a group actively working to dismantle the foundation for middle class life.
They wage that war with policies that deprive workers of the right to organize … policies like so-called “right to work” legislation… policies that undermine the chance for workers to negotiate better wages and benefits.
Governor Walker’s economic philosophy is pretty simple. Call it trickle down, call it voodoo economics, or just call it what it is: rewarding wealth over work.
He thinks that if you give even MORE tax breaks to big corporations and the wealthy - and then balance budgets on the backs of working people - then, somehow, magically, things will get better for everyone.
He’s wrong. Dead…wrong.
De Blasio, of course, recently snubbed his former boss Hillary Clinton, declining to nominate her for president until he "sees the substance" of her agenda. Now it seems he is doing his best to stoke the fever dreams of the New York Post's politics desk, which last week ran an anonymously sourced gossip item saying that the mayor is secretly planning a presidential campaign of his own.
Assuming he's not, some unsolicited advice for the mayor to earn some goodwill among the working people of New York: Get back tonight in time to make the game at Yankee Stadium. And next time someone gives you the finger, don't go whining about it to politicos in another state.
Tagged
2016 presidential campaign
bill de blasio
frequent flyer miles
hillary clinton
Scott Walker
Nathan Tempey
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