National - Friday, November 20, 2009 9:30 - 0 Comments
Senator Rudy Guiliani?
Former New York City mayor and professor of 9/11 studies Rudy Guiliani will not run for Governor of New York against either David Paterson or Andrew Cuomo, according to The New York Times. But fear not! Rudy will not leave New Yorkers to the sanity of Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.
The AP reports that Guiliani is “seriously considering” challenging Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand. Gillibrand was appointed to the seat only last year, so Guiliani’s OCD (btw, 9/11) might not be as heavy a burden as it would be against Schumer.
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Featured, National - Wednesday, November 4, 2009 16:19 - 0 Comments
NYU Is Really, Really Liberal
In light of last night’s off-year elections, it seems an appropriate time to zoom back to the Halcyon days of the 2008 election cycle. Remember all that excitement during the campaign? All the hope? All the classic Sarah Palin videos? When John McCain said, “The fundamentals of the economy are sound?”
Ah, good times.
Anyway, I got to feeling curious about which of our fine professors and administrators decided to put their money where their mouth was and donated money to the Presidential candidates in the 2008 cycle. The results are pretty epic.
Using the Huffington Post’s FundRace tool, which aggregates the Federal Election Committee’s list of $200+ donations to single Presidential candidates, I searched for those people listing either “New York University” or “NYU” as their employer.
Of 312 donors (giving at least $200), 306 of them gave to Democratic candidates. That means that only 1.9% of the donors gave to Republicans. Donor list after the jump.
City, National - Wednesday, November 4, 2009 9:45 - 3 Comments
Presidents Bush and Clinton to Debate at Radio City Music Hall (Seriously)
Gothamist reported that advance tickets are on sale today for the discussion between Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton during the Radio City Music Hall “Minds That Move The World” speaker series in February. No, you’re not hallucinating — Dubya vs. Bill is really happening. This is every politics major’s wet dream.
The advance tickets are only available to American Express members until Nov. 15, when tickets are released to the general public through Ticketmaster. Even if you’re an AmEx user, expect to empty the wallet a bit: face value of the tickets range from $60 – $1250.
Gothamist notes that the most expensive tickets are “if you want to join both presidents at a pre-debate reception for cocktails and picture-taking and awkwardness.” Okay, now that’s actually every politics major’s wet dream.
The MSG website is currently fielding suggestions for what each president should ask his counterpart, which is essentially a perfect prompt for an SNL skit. Give them your best shot, you hippie liberal!
Update: According to the NY Post, the debate “has been nixed because the promoter overhyped it as a death-match faceoff between the men.” However, promotions for the event still remain on the MSG website.
National - Thursday, October 22, 2009 12:00 - 2 Comments
Leading Conservative Intellectuals Come to the New School
At a talk a couple nights ago hosted at the New School’s Tischman Auditorium, Marco Roth, editor at Large for n+1, introduced both Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat as voices that he and people like him rarely hear, and as potentially controversial contributors. A less charitable mind would have thought that Roth simply wheeled two Republican quasi-intellectuals out to be hissed at by an activist student body.
There were some uneasy laughs (mostly from the panel itself), and the occasional cold silence from the audience, but many more genuine moments of connection over the course of the night. The event was, undoubtedly a success if it is to be measured in the terms Roth chose; as an opportunity for liberals to get to know the opinions of some conservatives and to identify possible areas of common ground.
That should not be how the success of Douthat and Salam’s project is measured. As explained in the title of their shared work, Douthat and Salam aren’t merely interested in bringing their somewhat heterodox conservative philosophy to liberal universities; they also want their recommendations to be enacted on a party-wide scale so that the GOP can win again.
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National - Wednesday, September 2, 2009 11:30 - 7 Comments
How to Pretend You Paid Attention to the News This Summer* (Part 1)
There’s a crucial semantic distinction between “summer” (the period of time between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox, as any good almanac will tell you) and “summer” (the period of time in between semesters that is traditionally spent regressing back to whatever point in your life at which you last recall being happy). Under the former definition, we’ve still got like three weeks left in the summer; but despite what some calendar-fascists will tell you, we all know, deep down, that summer is over. After all, if it were still summer, then you’d be waking and baking at 2 PM, or at the beach, gradually melting into the sand in the throes of a solar ray-induced torpor.**
That’s obviously not the case. It’s fall semester, and you’ve been unceremoniously jettisoned from your pre-natal activity level back into the strange, crude approximation of the real world that is NYU. And as an unwilling re-inductee into the sort-of-but-not-really-real-world, it’s quite possible that you’re going to be expected to know things about current events. Maybe you’re a journalism major, or maybe you just spent the previous school year using Barack Obama to get laid and you’re afraid that you’ll need a new shtick soon.
Either way, I’m here to help. Below are half of the major stories of the summer. The rest of the list will come tomorrow.
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National - Thursday, April 30, 2009 13:15 - 15 Comments
Hate Crimes Are Hateful, House Dems Declare
The House approved a bill yesterday defining hate crimes as those discriminating against victims of different “race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender” or anything that else that’s frowned upon in the South. The bill, passed by a largely Democratic 249-175 vote, also gives states federal grants to deter and prosecute hate crime (whatever that means).
The sexual orientation card was played often during hearings. Gay and Jewish Rep. Barney Frank said the bill would protect “people like me.” Yes, he’s gay, Jewish, and liberal. How the hell is he not an NYU alum?
National - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 14:55 - 2 Comments
Obama’s First 100 Days: A Progressive Agenda Unfolds
And so we’ve reached the mother of all metrics defining executive effectiveness – the 100th day in office for a new president. Although the number is inherently arbitrary, it does provide us all a moment to stop, step back, and evaluate what President Obama has accomplished over the past three months. Because of our 24-hour, hyperactive, and constantly refreshed sources of news, it is easy to get caught up in the short-term news cycle — swine flu actually isn’t the only thing worth talking about!
The 100 days benchmark provides a perfect opportunity to break out of that cycle.
Regardless of your views about his policies, when looking back over Obama’s brief tenure, it is remarkable how much he has undertaken in such a short time. He has pushed contentious legislation through Congress, embarked on a global diplomacy tour, unveiled an ambitious budget, reversed Bush policies on issues from torture to stem cell research, and changed course in the war on terror, all while trying to heal the ailing economy. Continue…
On Campus - Friday, April 24, 2009 9:15 - 0 Comments
Vote In The CAS Student Council Elections Today
Although you probably didn’t get a chance to attend the candidates’ debate yesterday since the email about the event went out five minutes before it, you do have a chance to vote for them. More importantly, you can vote on the controversial amendments to their constitution, including a requirement for three semesters of council experience in order to run for president (and two for treasurer).
One NYU student even created a facebook group urging people to “Vote NO on CAS Student Council Amendments.”
Agreed. This is a democratically elected council – their attempt to limit the powerful positions for themselves, regardless of their rationale, is antithetical to democracy.
CAS students, go here to vote. Polls close on Saturday at 10:30 PM.
National - Tuesday, April 14, 2009 10:51 - 2 Comments
Court Rules Franken Winner Of MN Senate Race
The horribly long, drawn-out recount and Senate battle between Al Franken and Norm Coleman is finally dragging to the finish – unless Coleman has anything to say about it. Yesterday, Minnesota courts ruled that Franken won the most votes and noted, “The overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates that the Nov. 4, 2008, election was conducted fairly, impartially and accurately.” But Coleman quickly announced plans to appeal the decision.
So GOP leadership has stepped up and supported Coleman’s plan, right? Not so much. There’s been an eerie silence from the RNC and other organizations – and some Republicans are even telling him to call it quits. MSNBC personality Joe Scarborough said this morning, “Seriously. Norm, I like you. You lost. Okay… It is seriously not fair to constituents in Minnesota to drag this out any longer. It is over Norm, okay. It is over.”
Yes, it is over, Norm. The votes have been counted; you have fewer than Al. Please fade away so reporters don’t have to continue to watch you flail away at an estimated cost of $145,181 a week.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Aaron Landry.
National - Friday, April 10, 2009 8:00 - 9 Comments
General: Iraq Withdrawal Plan May Have To Change
The country’s top general said yesterday that Obama’s timetable for withdrawal from Iraq may need to be ignored. General Ray Odierno thinks that the June 30th deadline may not allow enough time to to stabilize some of the country’s most violent cities. He thinks that troop numbers in the northern part of the country may need to increase over the next year.
But the final decision on troop levels will be made by Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister. Unfortunately, he is likely damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. If the region needs more troops, he’ll feel pressured to ask for them, but with that request will come a potential populist uproar. Iraqis oppose the US presence there and won’t be happy to hear that their PM decided to keep the Americans around. Continue…
