Breaking: President Calls for Section 8 Housing on Martha's Vineyard

By Biff Spackle:



Citing a concern with diversity on the posh resort island of Martha's Vineyard, a vacationing President Barack Obama today called for a massive local buildup of Section 8 Housing.



"To paraphrase a famous movie," the President joked, "'I see white people.' In all seriousness, our national mandate for diversity demands that we integrate Martha's Vineyard, which today is a haven for millionaires and billionaires, as well as corporate jet- and yacht-owners, almost all of whom have pasty white complexions. And just think of all of the thousands of construction jobs we'll save or create!"



The President's auto-pen in Washington signed an Executive Order commanding the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to build "not less than three thousand low-income housing units on the north side of the island near Lambert's Cove."



In a prepared statement, former HUD Secretary and current Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo praised the move. "It's high time the pampered wealthy on the Vineyard experienced some of the pain all of the rich people have inflicted upon society. The residents of the Vineyard need to see what it's like to deal with high unemployment, flash mobs, high unemployment, flash mobs, and crappy schools run by iron-fisted teachers' unions.



Continued on Page D-17

Can you guess what's different about Andrew Cuomo? [R.B.]

R.B. writes:

Andrew Cuomo took on the public employee unions -- and forced concessions from them -- in order to balance the New York State budget with spending cuts and without tax increases. Chris Christie (New Jersey), Scott Walker (Wisconsin), and John Kasich (Ohio) did pretty much the same thing in their states

But only Cuomo emerged from his battles with the unions lauded by media for his actions. Can you guess what made Cuomo different from the others?

Party Affiliation Determined Coverage of State-Union Battles

Jonathan S. Tobin 07.19.2011 - 12:59 PM

During the last several months, the governors of three states have gone toe-to-toe with powerful state unions in order to undo the harm done by their predecessors’ capitulations to state workers on wages and benefits. In Wisconsin and New Jersey, Republicans Scott Walker and Chris Christie were subjected to unprecedented abuse by the unions and their supporters. Yet in New York, Andrew Cuomo not only overcame union resistance, he managed to do so without much negative press, let alone the deluge of insults and demonization his colleagues suffered...

...Lacking the same political leverage their colleagues in Wisconsin and New Jersey possessed, the New York unions were forced to meekly bow to Cuomo’s dictates and accept drastic changes in compensation and benefits. Instead of being branded as a polarizing figure as was the case with Walker and Christie, Cuomo gets to play the state’s fiscal hero.

...as much as he deserves the praise for taking on a tough situation, the main lesson of this story is to show just how biased is the coverage of the not dissimilar confrontations elsewhere. As much as the collective bargaining issue helped generate sympathy for Wisconsin unions which refused to accept responsibility for the state’s parlous financial health, Walker’s goals were very similar to those of Cuomo. It should also be noted that like Cuomo, Christie didn’t touch the collective bargaining issue. Yet, he was branded a “Nazi” by rabble-rousing union thugs just like Walker, a slur never aimed once at the governor of New York.

The moral of the story is that unions and their cheering section in the liberal mainstream media can call a fiscally responsible Republican any name in the book and make it stick. But Democrats with the same intent get to play by different rules of engagement that can allow them to get tough with unions without being smeared...

This theme aligns perfectly with the spectacular new book Left Turn, which quantitatively measures the liberal lens through which Americans are forced to view events.

Graphic: gas taxes by state -- take a wild guess which states are the worst for gas taxes?

You don't have to be Kreskin to figure it out: the failed blue states of Illinois, New York and California take the prize.

The oppressive tax burdens of these destructive, Democrat-controlled states help explain why people and businesses are fleeing for greener pastures.