Tag Archives: The Bronx

The Obvious Contrast

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President Trump gave a speech in the Bronx on Thursday.

Here are a few notes about that speech (from The Federalist):

“I was thrilled to be back in the city I grew up in, the city I spent my life in, the city I HELPED BUILD, and the city WE ALL LOVE — THANK YOU!” Trump said on Truth Social. Trump grew up in Queens but officially moved to Florida in 2019. His effusive praise for New York shows a remarkably positive attitude from the former president, given that the city and state are currently part of a Democrat campaign plot to bankrupt and imprison him.

…“It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or brown or white or whatever the hell color you are — it doesn’t matter. We are all Americans, and we are going to pull together as Americans!” Trump said.

The Federalist also reported:

The contrast with President Joe Biden couldn’t be starker. In three decidedly non-raucous speeches within the last week or so, Biden leaned into racial grievance politics. At a speech at the National Museum of African American History and Culture last Friday, Biden claimed America was beset by “forces trying to deny freedom of opportunity for all Americans.” He claimed there was an “insidious” resistance and an “extreme movement” led by his political opponent to hurt black people. In another disaster of a speech to the NAACP, the White House later had to make 10 corrections to it.

The same day as the NAACP speech, Biden gave the commencement address at Morehouse College, a historically black men’s school in Georgia. In a self-centered speech riddled with some of his familiar falsehoods about his life and family, Biden painted a picture of a racist and evil country.

He said the country was under the “poison of white supremacy” and falsely claimed Americans were trying to put forth a national book ban to harm black people.

It’s “natural to wonder if democracy” actually works, he said. “What is democracy if black men are being killed in the street? What is democracy if a trail of broken promises still leave black — black communities behind? What is democracy if you have to be 10 times better than anyone else to get a fair shot?”

We are not a perfect country. However, I would rather be led by someone who wants to see equal opportunity rather than equal outcome and who doesn’t sow division by claiming we are still playing by 1950’s rules.

Sad News For Those Of Us Who Remember New York City In The 1960’s

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The New York Daily News is reporting today that columnist Jimmy Breslin has died. During the 1960’s, Jimmy Breslin was a columnist for the New York Herald Tribune. His columns were insightful and often hilarious. They were the subject of many conversations in my house when I was growing up. He wrote many books, but my two favorites are Can’t Anyone Here Play This Game, a book about the 1962 New York Mets (who were an adventure in themselves) and The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight based on the life of Joey Gallo (later made into a movie).

Jimmy Breslin was definitely a product of New York. Born in Jamaica, New York, he attended Long Island University.

The Daily News article describes the article that got him noticed:

In 1963, Breslin was hired as a news columnist for the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made his mark.

He was sent to cover the funeral of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, and found an angle that eluded other reporters. Breslin’s story about Clifton Pollard, the man who dug the President’s grave is still one of the most talked about stories in journalism history, even used in J-school courses as a prime example of enterprise reporting.

“One of the last to serve John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who was the thirty-fifth President of this country, was a working man who earns $3.01 an hour and said it was an honor to dig the grave,” Breslin wrote.

Over the next quarter century Breslin was a scoop machine, scoring exclusives on government corruption and Mafia malfeasance.

His unique views on the events of the day and the humor he added to reporting those events will be missed.