We May Have a Weiner in the Mayoral Race by Next Week

Categories: Make It Stop

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"I'm trying to gauge not only what's right and what feels comfortable right this second, but I'm also thinking, How will I feel in a year or two years or five years? Is this the time that I should be doing it? And then there's the other side of the coin, which is, am I still the same person who I thought would make a good mayor?"

These were the questions Anthony Weiner asked himself in a New York Times Magazine profile published last month that sparked widespread interest in the former Congressman's future political aspirations. The hints came two years after the cyber-sexting scandal that brought down Weiner's Congressional career. And, since then, the politician from Queens has played his cards strategically, to say the least.

His admissions on television interviews have painted him as a man begging to look past the scandal that rocked him and his family a year ago. He reactivated his Twitter after leaving it for... err, obvious reasons. His hypothetical polling in the race has given him more than enough reason to take himself seriously. So who cares about the Clintons? Regardless of their support, this is a candidate who has the potential to change everything.

And, if indications are what we're going on here, that shift might come as soon as next week.

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How Not to Write About the Women of Star Trek

Categories: Make It Stop

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Anna Fischer via Compfight cc
Isn't 2013 a little late to be publishing myopic "women who rock!" pieces? This Daily News gem, for example, showed us exactly how absurd it is to write about how much Star Trek values its complex female characters, then undermine those very points with a photo and caption that screams, "HEY, TITS."

Here are some brief tips for those who want to write about the entertainment industry embracing feminism going forward:

1. Got a terrible pun you're itching to use? Don't. Using the word "veritable" does not legitimize "Babe-fleet academy." Nor will it ever.

EX: "Specifically, Zoe Saldana and Alice Eve make this second entry in the rebooted sci-fi franchise a veritable Babe-fleet academy."


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The Subway Homeless Rate Rises As More Unsheltered Go Underground

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We've been hit with two incredibly significant statistics of Gotham income's reality over the past few months. First, the homelessness levels in this city right now are that of the Great Depression. And second, half of New Yorkers live in or near poverty. Now that we're settled into the situation here, let us move on.

City statistics show that the rate of homeless people sleeping on the subways rose by 13 percent this year - a steady increase underground that has unfortunately gone on for some time now. In 2005, the approximation was around 845; eight years later, that number is around 1,850. Above ground, the homeless population sleeping on the streets dropped by a mere 2 percent.

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This Dude Wants to Hand Out Free Shotguns to New Yorkers

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When it comes to guns, New Yorkers know a thing or two. In August, people traded in 509 guns at a gun buyback program in Queens for cold hard cash; in September, monetary prizes were handed out in exchange for 85 guns in total over in Bushwick. This was followed a few months later with the signing of Governor Cuomo's gun control bill, as New York became the first state to actually do something about guns in a post-Newtown America.

And then we found out about this guy.

Kyle Coplen is the founder of the Armed Citizen Project. The mission of the organization is in its name: Coplen's group believes that the hoi polloi should be just as strapped as the police. By doing so, he argues that crime will slowly dissipate since, well, everyone will both figuratively and literally have a gun to their heads.

Coplen believes that the residents of New York City, under the anti-gun oversight of Bloomberg, Kelly and Cuomo, need guns in their hands more than ever. His plan? To give out free shotguns and training to learn how to use said shotgun to whoever wants one.

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NYAG Eric Schneiderman Plans To Sue BOA & Wells Fargo For Mortgage Fraud

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In January of 2011, President Obama selected New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in his State of the Union address to lead a banking crime busters force. The creation of the team came on behalf of the Democrat's disenfranchised liberal base, a sect frustrated with the lack of criminal consequences for the recession's architects. But, given that Wall Street, the epicenter of the 2008 financial storm, lies in Schneiderman's backyard justified the choice for him as its leader.

Since then, he's been on a serious streak with his legal weaponry; he's brought lawsuits against J.P. Morgan-Chase, he's gone after Credit Suisse for conning investors before the crisis and he's served subpoenas to the private equity firms of Romney lore. And yesterday, he continued that roll with news of Manhattan courts' next target: a lawsuit issued at Bank of America and Wells Fargo for circumventing a National Mortgage Settlement from last year.

It's the first time an Attorney General has brought a lawsuit under the settlement and it looks like it could be the largest action taken thus far by the Wall Street inspector.

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Get Ready For The Condo-ification of Avenue A

Categories: Make It Stop

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josewolff via Compfight cc
Condo-ification of the LES, par example.
Manhattan has become the most expensive place to live in the country. Brooklyn ranks second on that unfortunate list. The latter is getting so costly that people are moving back to the former in some weird migratory conundrum. A main force behind all of this has been condofication - a mainstay of the Bloomberg administration's housing policy. We don't know what else to say that could prepare you for their impending invasion.

In that battle, Avenue A stands as a thin red line between the real estate forces that have glossed up the East Village over the past decade or so and the rest of Alphabet City. And it's a line that is disappearing by the day; condos have popped up as far east as Avenue D with wealthier residents (yuppies, gentrifiers, whatever) pushing into the corners of the hip neighborhood.

And news last week confirmed what we're all scared to say out loud: it's only a matter of time before the entire East Village becomes an uninhabitable condo paradise (think: Williamsburg waterfront).

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Have You Seen This Bushwick Sexual Assault Suspect?

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Courtesy NYPD
Because the NYPD has video this time.

Police said that the suspect sexually assaulted two women roughly two months apart. During the first attack, which took place on February 1, the suspect grabbed a 39-year-old woman walking down Woodbine Street in Bushwick, pushed her down, and grabbed her breasts and behind. The survivor was able to fight off her attacker, and he fled on foot. Video of the suspect below.

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What's the NYPD's Next Legally Tested Practice? Larceny Booby Traps

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The NYPD has this thing they do called Operation Lucky Bag. Officers leave these satchels or duffelbags full of cash and valuable objects in public spaces around the city. If someone picks one up, they're arrested soon after on the assumption that the person will not seek to return the bag to its proper owner.

The NYPD's defense is that it's an efficient means of detaining lifelong larcenists and thus deterring theft in normally crowded areas. How is this legal? Who knows. But that's the question being asked this week in several lawsuits filed against what could become the NYPD's newest legal headache.


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The Rent Conundrum: Brooklynites Are Fleeing Back to Manhattan!

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A few months ago, we sadly had to write a post titled "Brooklyn is No Longer the 'Budget-Savvy' Alternative to Manhattan." It revolved around the news that Brooklyn was now the second most-expensive place to live in the country, falling only below its skyscraper neighbor, Manhattan. But what happens when the second-most expensive place to live becomes as costly, if not more, than the most expensive place?

Let's call it the modern-day urban sprawl.

In a story that would come as a surprise to someone living in 2006, the Daily News reported yesterday that Brooklyn is becoming so damn expensive that recent transplants are actually going back to Manhattan. The slowly, then rapidly developing real estate boom in Kings County over the past decade is now pushing out newcomers as well as longtime residents.

Welcome to the rent conundrum that is New York City.

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Cuomo Introduces "The Public Trust Act" After Last Week's Scandal Fest

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Last week, New York government, on both a city and state level, bore witness to corruption in its purest form.

In a matter of days, a mayoral rigging scheme was uncovered that involved the City Council, the State Assembly, and business interests. And then we found out about yet another plan in the Assembly that involved wire-tapping, bribing and, once again, business interests. The Halloran/Smith and Stevenson/Castro debacles revived a question that has driven New York politics for years: is it really that driven by money?

Well, in any sort of political scandal pile-up, the government has to make it seem like it's doing something. That's your cue, Cuomo.

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