The crowd of reporters outside the Lipstick Building yesterday evening crammed close enough to Eliot Spitzer to spot a patch of salt-and-pepper stubble that the disgraced former governor had missed on the underside of his otherwise clean-shaven chin. Spitzer—who stammered a bit when a passerby yelled “ELIOT, YOUR DATE IS HERE!”—was on his way into a “petitioning party” at building’s ground floor restaurant.
John Liu only became New York City's comptroller 10 days ago. But the self-important, gaffe-prone ex-city councilman has already managed to make himself look idiotic: "New York City's new comptroller, John Liu, has ordered his staff to rise whenever he enters the room and to address him as "Mr. Comptroller. The new presidential-like formalities were laid out during a series of meetings last week that had veteran denizens of the Municipal Building snickering behind his back, sources said." [NYP]
Only about three people turned up to vote yesterday, but New Yorkers did pick Democratic nominees for public advocate and comptroller (both of whom are virtually guaranteed to win the general election come November): Bill de Blasio won the race for public advocate; and John Liu is the nominee for comptroller. [NYT]
Did you know that the run-off elections for comptroller and public advocate take place in NYC tomorrow? Probably not, since turnout at the polls is expected to be so low that pollsters are having a hard time coming up with accurate predictions about who's going to win when John Liu faces off against David Yassky to be NYC's next comptroller and Bill de Blasio goes up against Mark Green in the battle to be public advocate. But that means if you do plan to vote, you might actually make a difference! Just something to keep in mind! [Crain's, NY1]
Did you vote in the Democratic primary yesterday? If you didn't, you'll get another chance to make good in the next couple of weeks. A runoff election will be required to select Democratic candidates for both comptroller and public advocate since none of the candidates pulled in at least 40 percent of the vote yesterday. In the race for comptroller, the top two finishers, City Councilmen John Liu and David Yassky, will now go head to head; and Bill de Blasio and Mark Green will square off for the public advocate nomination when the special election is held on September 29.
Islam Karimov is the autocratic leader of Uzbekistan and a man routinely described as one of the worst dictators on earth by the likes of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. (The group Common Dreams once suggested he's so bad that he made Saddam "look good.") Since taking over the oil and gas-rich country in 1989, he's plundered billions, held fake elections to keep himself in power, censored the media, and tortured those who dare to challenge him, often using some of the most barbarian methods to do so, like submerging them in boiling water. And now he's coming to visit New York! Not really. But we wondered: What would happen if one of the most evil tyrants did decide to come to New York. Would he receive a warm welcome from the local political establishment? We wanted to know. So we did what you'd probably do in such a situation: We printed up some official-looking letterhead and sent out letters to various City Council members and local congressmen to see if they'd take the meeting. And guess what? Lots of influential politicos have no objection to sitting down with one of the worst men on earth. Details on the people we duped—with audio of their calls to Karimov's "office"—after the jump.
Some folks aren't all that happy that Michael Bloomberg has yet to decide whether he's going to try and revise the city's term limit laws and seek a third term as mayor, or find something else to do with his vast wealth and influence when his term runs out next year. So who's unhappy, exactly? All the people who were planning to run themselves, until the mayor mucked up their plans and suggested he might not be opposed to changing the law and serving out another term.
John Liu
