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Preview Of President Obama’s View Interview

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:15:13 +0000

President Obama and the View hosts, Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, and Elisabeth Hasslebeck (ABC) President Obama’s historic* visit to The View will air at 11 a.m. tomorrow (*historic because he’s the first sitting president to visit a daytime talk show), but ABC has provided a preview—Barbara Walters asks him about his life’s pleasures and challenges, “In the last month what has been the rose? And what has been the thorn?” Video is below and a transcript is after the jump: He also explained why he’s not going to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding , “I was not invited to the wedding because I think Hillary and Bill, properly, want to keep this thing for Chelsea and her soon-to-be husband,” and joked, “You don’t want two presidents at one wedding. All the secret service, guests going through (metal detectors), all the gifts being torn apart.” Joy Behar has been Tweeting about the President lately—here are some from yesterday and today, “Herr Limbaugh says I will need knee pads when I interview President Obama. Please, the man is tall” (HA!), “I’m getting ready to interview President Obama. There’s so much security here at the View, you’d think Justin Bieber was back” ( heh ), “The President is here. Finally some good food in the Green Room,” and “With President Obama in the Green Room at The View. http://twitpic.com/29j28u” President Obama: Well in the last month the rose has to be a couple of days we took in Maine with Michelle and Sasha and Malia, and we went on bike rides and hikes, and the girls are getting old enough now where they’re not quite teenagers yet, so they still like you (AUDIENCE LAUGHTER), but they are full of opinions and ideas and observations, and it’s just a great age. Malia just turned 12 and Sasha just turned nine, and it couldn’t have been a better couple of days. Barbara Walters: Thorn? President Obama: Well, where do I begin here? (AUDIENCE LAUGHTER) Barbara Walters: At the top. President Obama: Obviously the country has gone through a tough stretch since I took office. When I was sworn in, I know you showed the Inauguration, we were losing at that time 750,000 jobs per month, the economy was shrinking at a pace of about 6.5%, which is unheard of since the Great Depression, and so the last 20 months has been a non-stop effort to restart the economy, to stabilize the financial system, to make sure that we’re creating jobs again instead of losing them, and in the midst of all that we’ve also had the oil spill, we’ve also had two wars, we’ve also had a pandemic, H1N1, that we had to manage, and a whole host of other issues. What has been gratifying is the fact that the economy now is starting to stabilize and grow again, and what’s been satisfying is seeing how resilient the American people are. As much as you said it’s been tough for me, the truth is, it’s not tough for me; you know I’ve got people, pundits on the news who may say things about me. Barbara Walters: You noticed? President Obama: Of course, you think about what the American people have gone through, losing jobs, seeing their home values go down, their 401Ks declining, those are the folks who I draw inspiration from because I get letters every night from them and I read them. And as tough as it’s been, they remain hopeful, they remain optimistic about America, and so I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about me. I spend a lot of time worrying about them.

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Preview Of President Obama’s View Interview

Ice T Tells Fans He’s "Not Breaking The Law No More"

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:50:43 +0000

Yesterday, Ice T headed to Ustream to chat with his fans and, naturally, he discussed his arrest last week . When he was headed to the Lincoln Tunnel, en route back to NJ, the rapper-actor was stopped and given a ticket for driving without a seat belt (Ice T isn’t sure how the cop could have seen that since his windows are illegally tinted) and then arrested for driving with a suspended license. However, Ice T denies the suspended license claim, saying that he only recently got his NJ license, plus he’s “not breaking the law no more.” Ice T says there was just an insurance lapse in 2008, but not a real suspension, and insists the cop was overreacting, yelling at him to “Get out of the car!” and was in “punk bitch mode.” Even though the cop’s partner was rolling his eyes, the cop put handcuffs on him, which pissed him off (“I’m like, ‘You little bitch motherf—–’”) and claims the cop threatened to make his wife, the bodacious Coco, walk home. You can see him describe the experience in the video (the lengthy explanation about the arrest starts around 00:20:50; before that, he cover other topics like the movies Inception, Predators, and Salt ) but one funny part is how he was greeted when put into the holding cell: ” Oh, shit, Ice T’s up in here with us! This is the best day of my life! ” Ice T, who now has a desk appearance ticket, is just annoyed the cop was a jerk , “As far as the cop, he didn’t do anything wrong, but he shouldn’t have been such an a–hole. … Wait until you find a body in my trunk [to arrest me].”

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Ice T Tells Fans He’s "Not Breaking The Law No More"

Subway Ridership Rising, Service Declining

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:37:30 +0000

In preparation for this week’s MTA board meetings being held to vote on fare hikes , the Authority has unveiled the May 2010 ridership figures. The report is over 140 pages long, but Second Avenue Sagas sifted through it and concludes: “After months of an economy-related decline in ridership, subway usage had finally started to creep up again. The service cuts, in other words, came at a very bad time.” Ridership for the year has been approximately 1.2 percent above expected for the MTA. Which means more New Yorkers will soon be paying more for less. MTA’s absolute on-time performance hit a three-year low last month, with only 59.8 percent of all weekday trains arriving on time. (In MTA parlance, “on time” means within five minutes of when the train was scheduled to arrive.) The two charts here pretty much sum up the situation, but we suggest printing out the entire 144 page pdf so you can give it a thorough read during your commute home. (And remember to bring a good book too so you’ll have something more to read when you finish the report!)

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Subway Ridership Rising, Service Declining

Is This List of What New Yorkers Like Realistic?

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:28:13 +0000

Trying to make sweeping generalizations about the personalities of New Yorkers is never a good idea, but the Daily News thinks it’s narrowed down “50 Things That Make New Yorkers Smile.” Some of the schadenfreude is spot on (“Seeing the tourists actually stand and wait at the corner till the Walk signal lights up”) while other points seem really neighborhood specific (“Going to the Gee Whiz Diner for waffles at 4 a.m.”). And is getting a t-shirt from Ollie’s Noodle Shop a thing? Because that just seems one step away from “Wearing the ‘Hard Rock Cafe’ shirt I bought on my high school field trip.”

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Is This List of What New Yorkers Like Realistic?

Suspected Killer Jumps Donor Line, Gets New Liver

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:26:36 +0000

Looks like Lindsay Lohan isn’t the only criminal who’s getting special treatment these days. Right before going to jail for killing his wife on July 5th, Johnny Concepcion left New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center with a brand new liver. His old one was ruined after he tried to kill himself with rat poison. Concepcion admitted to killing his wife after witnesses saw him fleeing their home, where she was found stabbed 15 times. He was found after family got a text message from him saying, “To the members of the family, I hope you can forgive me,” and brought to the hospital to be treated for liver failure. And though he was arrested at the hospital and charged with murder and weapons possession, officials say social factors don’t measure into the decision of whether or not to give someone an organ. Anne Paschke, spokeswoman for the United Network of Organ Sharing, said, “The system is designed to save as many people as possible.” There are 309 patients on the liver-transplant list at New York-Presbyterian hospital alone, some of whom have been on the list for over five years. Doctors determine “status” on the list after physical and psychological tests, but both family members and others waiting for transplants are appalled at the hospital’s decision to move Concepcion to the front of the line. Kerry Sullivan has been waiting over a year for a liver, and isn’t allowed on the main transplant list because he has a type of liver cancer that doesn’t count as a disease. He told the Post Concepcion’s transplant was “a waste of an organ. It’s ludicrous. Not only did they give it to a killer, but a suicidal killer.” Sullivan must continue to wait for a cadaver liver or find his own living donor. Concepcion’s wife’s mother, Maria, said, “There are children on the waiting lists, people who work hard. And this guy who killed my daughter, who killed the mother of his children, then tried to take his life, gets priority over them? It doesn’t seem fair.” Concepcion and his fancy new liver are due back in court on August 11th.

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Suspected Killer Jumps Donor Line, Gets New Liver

AG Candidate Rice First Voted In 2002, 18 Years After Registering

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:35:38 +0000

Yesterday, Newsday reported that Nassau County DA and NY Attorney General candidate Kathleen Rice has only voted eight times since first registering to vote in 1984: “Rice, who faces four challengers in a Sept. 14 primary contest for the Democratic nomination, cast the first vote of her life in November 2002. All told through 2009, she voted in eight of the 26 years since she first registered to vote as a Republican in 1984.” Rice explained, “It was my mistake. During that period of my life, I did not vote. Unfortunately, like a lot of young adults early in their professional lives, I failed to see the political significance of casting a ballot.” Rice is considered the frontrunner in the field, what with the largest campaign fund and the behind-the-scenes support of current AG and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Cuomo. Newsday also look at the available voting records of her four Democratic rivals as well as Republican nominee Daniel Donovan (the current Staten Island DA)—you can see the findings after the jump—and most other candidates appear to have some gaps in their voting histories, though Rice has the biggest gap. The NY Times reports this “may help bolster one of the main lines of attack from her fellow Democrats: that she is a political opportunist with no genuine attachment to the Democratic Party.” Assemblyman Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester), another Democratic AG candidate, who has voted every year since 1975 (he registered in Westchester in 1971; his campaign says he first registered in the 1960s and voted regularly), said, “These were the Bush years, so thank goodness. This meant one less Republican vote during those years.” According to the Times, Rice says she registered as a Republican at age 18 “at the urging of her father,” but then “Working as a federal prosecutor in Philadelphia, she re-registered as an independent before changing her registration to Democrat in 2005.” She said, “I chose, late in life, to get involved in politics because I wanted to try and make neighborhoods and families safer. While some career politicians may be different, my voting record earlier in life is further proof that I’m not someone who ever set out on some flawless lifelong political plan to run for office.” [See Carolyn Kennedy ] While some candidates didn’t directly address Rice’s voting record, a spokesman for State Senator Eric Schneiderman (D-Manhattan), he of the damaged NY1 editor’s car incident , said , “It’s up to Ms. Rice to explain to New York’s Democratic primary voters why they should choose a longtime Republican who never participated in the civic process until it served her own political self-interest.” From Newsday: Assemb. Richard L. Brodsky (D-Westchester) has voted every year since 1975, according to available records – and he says he began voting in the late 1960s. Donovan, 53, the Republican Staten Island district attorney, voted every year since 1992, and says he has voted every year since becoming eligible in the mid-1970s. Democrat Sean Coffey, 54, a former federal prosecutor, voted in 15 of the 26 years since he registered to vote in Nassau in 1984, and recalled voting previously in other states. Eric R. Dinallo, 46, a former Democratic state insurance commissioner, voted in 14 of the 18 years since registering to vote in New York City in 1991. State Sen. Eric T. Schneiderman (D-Manhattan), 55, voted in 20 of the 24 years since he registered to vote in New York City in 1986, and said he voted as a student in Massachusetts in the 1970s. Rice first voted in 2002 in Philadelphia and has voted every year since. She had registered as an independent in Philadelphia in 2000 after she began working there as a federal prosecutor. In April 2005, Rice returned to Nassau, this time registering as a Democrat to run that year for district attorney. She won and was re-elected in 2009. Coffey’s campaign notes that he voted via military absentee ballot during his Navy years, but those ballots were likely not counted.

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AG Candidate Rice First Voted In 2002, 18 Years After Registering

Bouquet Bandit Says Flowers Show He Is "Polite"

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:08:14 +0000

Poor Edward Pemberton. After being busted for robbing a bank armed with a bouquet of flowers , the former Chelsea’s Flower District employee now says he never wants to see another flower again. He told the Daily News , “They’re the thing that did me in. …They’re bad memories now.” But he also believes the plants that caused his downfall should prove that he’s not really a bad guy. “The flowers show I’m polite… The flowers were ‘Thank yous’ to people who were giving me something that didn’t belong to them, and didn’t belong to me either.” Police caught Pemberton after taking fingerprints from his signature gift, finding him hiding in his brother’s closet in Bed-Stuy . Though other inmates have been asking for his autograph, the romantic father of two says he regrets choosing a life of crime that will keep him apart from his family. He said, “I love Sue [his girlfriend] more than anything in the world. I could do 100 years in here, but being away from her is what kills me. Tell my family I love them. Tell my victims I’m sorry.”

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Bouquet Bandit Says Flowers Show He Is "Polite"

Three Dead in Seven Hours in Night of Queens Violence

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:40:01 +0000

A member of the Hells Angels was found dead on 28th street and Ditmars Boulevard Saturday morning, with several gunshot wounds to his head and bloody footprints where his face had been stomped in. “It looked like a cherry pie,” one local told the Post . The “execution-style” shooting happened around 5 a.m., and witnesses say the killer repeatedly kicked victim John Giampetruzzi as he lay on the ground. The shooting was the latest in a series of unrelated killings in the borough over Friday night. Around 10:40 p.m. on Friday, police found a woman’s body in an alley in St. Albans, with ligature marks on her wrists suggesting she had previously been tied up. She also had a punctured liver, several broken ribs and a broken jaw. Her death was ruled as a homicide, and the ME said she died of internal bleeding. Hours later , a man was beaten to death with a chain and a leather belt outside a bar in Corona. Police say Juan Paucar, 24, and Brandon Perez, 23, chased Mexican immigrant Jose Cortes from La Nortena on Roosevelt Avenue, catching up with him a block later, beating him to death on the street. Paucar and Perez were charged with manslaughter and possession of a weapon. Though these deaths have not yet been factored in, the latest NYPD statistics (through 7/11) say murder is up 16.7% in Queens North and 25% in Queens South. Overall crime is down 2% in the north, but up .5% in the south.

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Three Dead in Seven Hours in Night of Queens Violence

"Dating Brian" Has Brilliant Idea, Uses Internet For Dates

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:45:20 +0000

The internet will choose what you do with this man. Say you’re a fresh-faced New York City intern at an advertising agency, tasked with the project of creating something that would catch people’s attention. Let’s also say you’re also recently single, and want to get back in the game without your mom’s help . His name is Brian, and is using the internet to find himself some dates. Brian Moore convinced employers BBH advertising to back his social media project, where he goes on 30 dates in 30 days. But unlike typical dating sites which let you enjoy your date in private, Moore crowdsources his dates, letting the fates (i.e. random people on the internet) choose who he dates, where he takes them and how he should act. So far he’s taken three lucky ladies to Brooklyn Bowl, the High Line and Sweet Revenge. Right now he’s asking the internet how he should do his hair. Really, the premise is no different than the average single-and-looking New Yorker plastering Twitter with questions and updates for their friends to chime in on. Moore just put it on a bigger scale. He tells the Daily News , “I don’t pick up girls in bars, I’m not good at that, and that’s not the kind of thing I want to do.. .I’m putting myself on the line. It’s up to the Internet to make the decisions for me, my life is shared with the public.” Good to know that in the crazy New York dating scene, there is still a man out there who can avoid commitment by letting others make decisions for him. Women interested in having their date planned by the same community that made bros icing bros a thing can fill out a questionnaire online. Now all that’s left to do is to wait for the inevitable book deal/reality show. Shatner might have to sit this one out, though.

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"Dating Brian" Has Brilliant Idea, Uses Internet For Dates

Man Struck By Lightning In Brooklyn

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:27:47 +0000

There was a victim from last night’s sudden, violent storm : A 54-year-old man walking in Crown Heights was struck by lightning . According to the Daily News, he was “walking under some trees in the median of Eastern Parkway near Bedford Ave. A witness who was in her home at the time described, “His feet were smoking and he was bleeding from the mouth. It was terrifying.” The Post says a Good Samaritan started CPR on him and then medics showed up and were able to revive in him the ambulance with the debibrillator. Lt. Joe Cengiz of EMS Station 38 said, “You could smell burning flesh. His heart stopped.” The man is at Kings County Hospital on a respirator.

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Man Struck By Lightning In Brooklyn