21 Mar 2012 What’s Wrong with New York Politicians?
Washington, D.C. – Two new releases by the National Center for Public Policy Research raise the question, “What’s wrong with New York politicians?”
On Tuesday, the National Center released a new mini-documentary by filmmaker and National Center Media Fellow Steven Crowder exposing New York State’s seemingly corrupt relationship with a Nevada (yes, Nevada) culinary union resulting in the nation’s only ban on Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) exhibitions.
On Monday, National Center Senior Fellow Jeff Stier exposed New York City’s ban on private food donations to city shelters in an op-ed in the New York Post (additional details here).
“What’s wrong with New York politicians?” asked Amy Ridenour, chairman of the National Center for Public Policy Research. “Mixed Martial Arts surely is the fastest-growing spectator sport in the country. Last year, an MMA event sold an amazing 55,000 tickets, worth $11 million, in just a few minutes. Some have said the NFL should be looking over its shoulder. Yet New York State bans the sport, because the owner of the MMA championship event is having a dispute with a union in Nevada. Politicians should let private businesses and private unions work out their own disputes, and concentrate on the welfare of their constituents. New Yorkers need jobs, and New York needs revenue.”
“The Bloomberg administration is so obsessed with meddling in how we all live that it’s now eating away at the very best that New York citizens have to deliver,” said Jeff Stier in his New York Post op-ed. “The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term ‘food police’ to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless….”
The problem, from the city government’s point of view, is that it “can’t assess the nutritional content of donated food.” As the city is “dictating serving sizes as well as salt, fat and calorie contents, plus fiber minimums and condiment recommendations,” Stier says, it has to ban donated food, or it loses control over what people are eating.
“Condiment recommendations?” asked Amy Ridenour. “Thanks to the poor economy and too many years of overspending, governments at all levels are strapped for cash. Yet New York is so flush, it can turn away tasty free food and spend time telling its citizens to use ketchup instead of mayo?”
“New York City is great and the state is wonderful,” said Ridenour. “Its citizens deserve better than they’re getting.”
Jeff Stier’s op-ed can be read online here. Since the story appeared, he has been interviewed or had his story covered by the Drudge Report, Reuters, the Village Voice, New York Observer, Washington Times, FoxNews.com, FNC’s “Fox & Friends” and “The Five,” Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, WNEW/WNYW-TV Fox 5 New York, WCBS-TV CBS 2 New York, FBN’s John Stossel, CNN’s “Early Start” and “Starting Point,” U.S. News & World Report, the Daily Caller, WND (formerly WorldNetDaily), Daily Kos, Politicker, Huffington Post, Yahoo! News, PJ Media, New York Examiner, Tom Remington, Memeorandum, West Side Rag, Sister Toldjah and many other news outlets, radio stations and blogs.
Steven Crowder’s video, released Tuesday, already has over 30,000 views on multiple channels and is available by clicking below or at http://youtu.be/dPPbYUq9AsU.
Both Steven Crowder and Jeff Stier are available for interviews.
The National Center For Public Policy Research (https://nationalcenter.org) is a conservative, free-market, non-profit think-tank established in 1982. It is supported by the voluntary gifts of over 100,000 individual recent supporters, receiving about one percent of its revenue from corporate sources. Contributions to it are tax-deductible.
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