in the new issue of new york magazine there’s an article entitled ‘should nyc secede from the union?’
it’s such an appealing idea, i wonder if it’s in any way feasible.
or the possibility of nyc becoming ‘the independent commonwealth of new york city’.
or at the very least perhaps a little bit of tax equality(new york city pays, annually, $6,000,000,000.00 more to the state and federal government than it receives…).
it’s a great, and seductive, article.
please read it.
moby

please read the following from the center for american progress and keep it in mind when bush claims to be making america safer…

in recent weeks, president bush has touted his record on national security issues, while criticizing others for supposedly weakening u.s. homeland defense. but with the president refusing to meet with the 9/11 commission for longer than one hour, concerns are being raised about the whether the bush administration has something to hide about it’s pre-9/11 behavior. as columnist richard cohen notes, “”if the president wants to own sept. 11″” for his political gain “”he’s entitled. but it does not come alone. sept. 10 is his, too.”” while vice president cheney has derided questioning of the administration’s pre-9/11 behavior as “”thoroughly irresponsibleãŠand totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war,”” serious questions remain about whether the white house grossly neglected counter-terrorism in the lead-up to 9/11. as a 5/27/02 newsweek cover story noted, before 9/11 “”the bushies had an ideological agenda of their own””: one that subordinated ã? and in many cases tried to reduce funding for ã? counter-terrorism efforts. as the nyt reported om 2/28/02, the shift was so dramatic that senior intelligence agents feared it would mean “”that counterterrorism would be downgraded”” over the long run and that there was a “”lack of focus on fighting terrorism.”” what follows is an analysis of what the administration knew before 9/11, and what it did ã? and did not do – with that information:

the warnings ã? bush administration was told:
upon coming into office, the bush administration inherited a government that was receiving more and more specific warnings about the threat of an al qaeda attack on the united states. as abc news reported, bush administration “”officials acknowledged that u.s. intelligence officials informed president bush weeks before the sept. 11 attacks that bin laden’s terrorist network might try to hijack american planes.”” similarly, newsweek reported “”that as many as 10 to 12 warnings”” were issued, and “”more than two of the warnings specifically mentioned the possibility of hijackings.””
meanwhile, george tenet, “”was issuing many warnings that bin laden was ‘the most immediate’ threat to americans.””

the warnings were so explicit that in the months leading up to 9/11, attorney general john ashcroft stopped flying commercial airlines and instead began “”traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines”” because of “”what the justice department called a ‘threat assessment.'”” that “”threat assessment”” was not made public.

the warnings ã? post-9/11 denials:
despite these explicit warnings, national security adviser condoleezza rice claimed that the administration was never warned of an attack before 9/11, saying “”i don’t think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.”” similarly, president bush denied having any idea about the threat, saying on 5/17/02, “”had i know that the enemy was going to use airplanes to kill on that fateful morning, i would have done everything in my power to protect the american people.””

the focus ã? what the bush administration inherited:
upon taking office, the bush administration inherited a national security structure increasingly focused on the threat of terrorism. as the nyt reported, attorney general janet reno ended her tenure as “”perhaps the strongest advocate”” of counterterrorism spending, and newsweek reported national security adviser sandy berger was “”totally preoccupied”” with the prospect of a domestic terror attack, telling his replacement that they need to be “”spending more time on this issue than on any other.”” as a 4/2/00 wp story noted berger “”insists that the threat of large-scale terrorist attacks on u.s. soil is ‘a reality, not a perception.'”” he said at the time, “”we would be irresponsible if we did not take this seriously. i hope that in 10 yea