October 3, 2013

Bill de Blasio — with a 50 point lead in the polls — addresses that motorcycle mob attack.

I'd said that the attack would hurt the campaign of the Democrats' left-wing candidate for NYC mayor, so I'm interested in how the seemingly soft-on-crime de Blasio addresses the incident.

He said:
“We I believe are seeing a phenomenon with some of these motorcycle groups deciding to take over certain streets so they can perform their stunts, and disrupt traffic, slow traffic in the process, and it’s dangerous. It’s really dangerous... This confrontation is a byproduct of that, so we have to crack down on this. It’s not legal to disrupt traffic in a group, it’s not legal, obviously to take the law into their own hands as they appear to have done... This is simply not acceptable behavior."
But what are you going to do about it? It's easy to say "This is simply not acceptable behavior" about all manner of crimes, but then what. "Crack down." How?

26 comments:

SteveR said...

I think that cancer is unacceptable, it is wrong.

Will said...

How? Well isn't it obvious? Occupy Wall Street will now crap on all motorcycles

Will said...

How? Isn't it obvious? Occupy will now crap on all motorcycles

Crunchy Frog said...

Try persuading the DA to bring charges against the perps. That might help.

Real American said...

what's he gonna do about it? punt.

Tank said...

That statement is the equivalent of HRC "taking responsibility" for what happened in Benghazi.

A lot of nothing.

CatherineM said...

Tank - "what dfference does it make at this point?"

This guy is being so promoted in the press that you would think he was running unopposed.

He is a real commie too. We are so screwed.

Forbes said...

The better question is directed at the media--will the media press him for answers on this, or any issue, i.e. what does he propose to do to curtail the problem, rather than serving as stenographers to record his feelings are about the conduct. Most of the local NYC media are as the national lapdog media-- syncopates to the hard left.

madAsHell said...

The solution is......Look!! Squirrel!!

AF said...

Actions speak louder than words is a funny criticism to lodge at someone who isn't mayor yet.

Or is the criticism that his words aren't tough enough? In that case I would reply that actions speak louder than words.

David-2 said...

1) Tank: no kidding!

2) “It’s not legal to disrupt traffic in a group, it’s not legal, obviously to take the law into their own hands as they appear to have done," he said. "This is simply not acceptable behavior." And yet ... he thinks that passing a law against gun ownership will keep criminals from owning guns ... because it won't be legal ... and it will be unacceptable behavior.

3) As far as the "crackdown" he's planning is concerned: I read that the police did attempt a crackdown - stopping bikers and impounding bikes at several locations where they were expected. But the large group of bikers split into smaller groups and evaded the cops. So whatever "crackdown" he's planning ... is going to have to be really big. Maybe they can use some of the FBI's drones to follow the bikers around ... or get a few drones of their own.

Kev said...

(the other kev)

This is what New York gets for rejecting Anthony Weiner.

Jay Vogt said...

As you occasionally do, you slyly and knowingly answered your own question, rendering it entirely rhetorical. He's got a 50 point lead. He can say any GD thing he wants, or nothing at all. It won't matter to him one bit and with this non-answer, he avoids pure downside risk.

But you knew that.

Drago said...

What's he going to do about it?

Nothing....and blame the gov't shutdown and republicans and Bush and probably Reagan as well.

For a sneak peak at the level of absurd finger pointing and do nothingness that is in our future, take a gander at the folks running Venezuela.

We're just about there.

Richard Dolan said...

"Actions speak louder than words is a funny criticism to lodge at someone who isn't mayor yet."

But he is the City's Public Advocate. So how about advocating a solution to the problem he says he sees, on behalf of the public he currently represents? Not too likely, with this guy. He's all mouth, all the time, and anyway is far more interested in atttacking the NYPD than anything else.

DeBlasio has never run anything. There is nothing to show he has any idea how to go about running an organization, let alone one as large and complex as NYC gov't. But this is the guy the Dems have thrown up, and it's quite likely we'll be stuck with him.

CWJ said...

AF said -

"Actions speak louder than words is a funny criticism to lodge at someone who isn't mayor yet."

AF apparently subscribes to the Nancy Pelosi theory of government. You'll have to elect me to find out what I would do.

Peter said...

" I read that the police did attempt a crackdown - stopping bikers and impounding bikes at several locations where they were expected. But the large group of bikers split into smaller groups and evaded the cops."

Which is exactly what you would expect them to do. Just as surely as suspects in a stopped car can be expected to run off in different directions.

But that doesn't mean tactics can't be devised to foil that. "There's nothing to be done" is pretty much what everyone said in pre-Giuliani NYC, yet there was plenty to be done. NYC voters should be looking for candidates who are willing to find and use effective ways to counter this sort of defiant hooliganism, not ones who just lament that it happens.

damikesc said...

NYC is going to regret voting for that guy so badly.

Couldn't be inflicted on a more deserving city.

From Inwood said...

Now in NYC it’s hard to think of an agenda more destructive than what the apparent next Mayor, Bill de Blasio (not even his birth name!), offers: class warfare, Great Society spending and traditional, soft-on-crime liberalism. The NYPost calls him "Che de Blasio".)

Recently I was trying to arrange a dinner date at the NYAC with a guy (an Irish-American RC who’d grown up in Larchmont in well-to-do surroundings; he now lives on the Uppa West Side, on 94th St), who, all of a sudden, sniggered (I can use that word, no?) about my living in [not NYC]. (No impulse control. But I digress.)

I asked him how he, of all people could knock [not NYC] with the clown-car election going on in NYC. He told me that de Blasio would help the poor & that he, the guy on the phone that is, hated Republicans because he was for the poor & that Obama would’ve gotten a lot of things done if it weren’t for the obstructionism of the GOP Then he went into bumpersticker-ese propaganda about Social Justice (Gurgle, Gurgle).

I started to try to explain to him that, forgetting politics, Conservative economic policies are good for the poor, you know encouraging the creation of wealth, which tends to drive out poverty, and thus most supportive of Catholic social teaching. But I quickly realized that it’s useless arguing with these people — moral exhibitionists espousing generous sentiment without the having to think of the costs to other people of the morally-appropriate policy which must follow — so I stopped & repeated something I’d just read about Obama being a hapless doofus, elected without any qualifications by well-meaning, guilt-bearing numbskulls like him, because of his skin color & BTW, why wasn'n he (my friend) living on Fifth Ave.

End of conversation.

And, not to sound like Cedarford, but most Jews I know seem to think that abortion is a sacrament & that it is written somewhere that they must therefore vote Dem

And de B has a Black wife (love piece to her in last Sunday's NYT) & his kid has a '70s Afro.

And the Hispanics? They always vote Dem.

From Inwood said...

[Last post too long}

IMHO, beginning back in the 70s, for the most part, Catholic Liberals, like this guy took up the most loony left-wing Liberalism, “McGovernism”, as a way to catch up with the world and leave the Catholic ghetto. In reality, they were exchanging what they saw as an intellect-free ghetto for the gulag of an intellectualoid Liberalism.

And NYC has always been controlled by those who feel that they have The High Moral Ground. The ones who feel — actually claiming a level of feeling that is greater than can be imagined & incapable of being realized — that NYC has a conscience regarding the poor. They, from the beginning of The Progressive Era, began a welfare system beyond that of the rest of the country. To pay for this, along with the necessary mass transit, hiways, bridges, tunnels, etc., not to mention world-class museums & parks, its politicians became illusionists (the original & more appropriate word for magicians) & cooked the books. They also cut essential things like fighting criminals. (1970s jokes: an apartment listing indicates that it’s a “short run to the subway”; “New York is an exciting town where something is happening all the time . . . most unsolved.”)

In any event, businesses fled pre-Giuliani but new opportunities in the IT area replaced them & NYC remained a magnet for immigrants. And, almost alone of “old” US cities, its population has remained stable without further annexation. And somehow it got its finances in order to stave off bankruptcy & elected two mayors who cleaned the streets of dirt & crime. And Finance seemed to have recovered from its cliff-fall.
Now? Is it doomed to a return of the cycle of buying off unions and other interest groups, seeing cops as the bad guys, raising taxes, and driving out businesses? Some High Moral Ground, that.

From Inwood said...

Drago, RD, CWJ,Peter

You are all correct.

From Inwood said...

Why Range Rover-Chasing Bikers Look Like Idiots

... The thing is, despite running over multiple bikes, it’s not the Range Rover driver that’s at fault, it’s the riders. They’re idiots...

Evidence of Idiocy #1: The near complete lack of safety gear, aside from vests.
...
Evidence of Idiocy #2: Pointless road rage.

Evidence of Idiocy #3: Losing control of your motorcycle.

Evidence of Idiocy #4: Mass beeping... a motorcycle horn... is hardly intimidating.

What exactly were these guys so mad about? Their buddy fell off his bike because he was riding like an idiot, and all of them were acting like jerks. The driver ran over their bikes because they were threatening his wife and kids. Did they think they were entitled to sole use of a major highway? Do they not recognize the right of an individual to defend his family from physical violence?
The thing is, despite their intimidating group presence, each and every one of the individuals involved would likely have responded similarly had they found their family threatened in a similar fashion. I know people who ride in these groups and, aside from being a little below average in terms of their ability to make smart decisions, none of them are violent criminals, they’re just guys looking to belong to something.
At what point does membership in group include threatening a little girl? It’s not tough, it’s not manly and it’s not what motorcycles should be about to these guys or anyone else. But it’s now what bikes represent to this family, and hundreds of thousands of other non-riders who will read about this in the news or watch the video online. It’ll change the way some people react to riders and may even result in some other car driver potentially

http://rideapart.com/2013/09/new-york-bikers-video/

Bob Loblaw said...

Politically this will be pretty easy for him to deal with. He'll just talk tough until he's in office.

Freeman Hunt said...

They need more motorcycle cops. Or they need to better utilize the motorcycle cops they have.

Anonymous said...

How? Outlaw them, that's how.

Nanny Bloomberg was tired of fat people, he outlawed Big Gulp.

Nanny De Blasio could outlaw Big Bikes.

Nanny Bloomberg erected bike racks for bikers.

Nanny De Blasio could make the bikers chain their Big Bikes to those bike racks.

Nanny Bloomberg wanted to limit magazine size for guns.

Nanny de Blasio could limit bike size for bikes that entered the city. Make them ride Mopeds.

Paul said...

Well here in Texas with our Stand-your-ground law AND the right to keep a gun in your car, well you see the outcome of some stupid bikers trying to take over the road and terrorize people.

But up north, they are free to reign due to mob rule and the lack of any meaningful way to defend oneself or their family.