Cuomo To Involuntarily Round Up Homeless, Take Them Off Streets When Temperatures Hit Freezing

Big Brother Cuomo going to make sure everybody stays warm - and sending another arrow Bill de Blasio's way:

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo will sign an executive order on Sunday that will bring the homeless in out of the cold — and it’s mandatory.

Citing the risks of hypothermia and possible death, Cuomo will require communities — including New York City — to take the homeless who live outside to shelters when the mercury hits the freezing mark, the Daily News has learned.

If they refuse to go, the order, which goes into effect on Tuesday, calls for the involuntary taking of the homeless to shelters when the temperatures hit 32 degrees or below.

“We’re in a period now of the winter inclement weather,” Cuomo told The News. “It’s dangerous for homeless people to be on the streets.”

Though Cuomo insists he is looking for a uniformed statewide standard to deal with homelessness, the order could add more flames to the simmering feud between the governor and Mayor de Blasio.

Without specifically singling out New York City, Cuomo’s executive order notes that “certain parts of the state are facing a crisis of homelessness unprecedented in recent history.”

Obviously this is aimed at the de Blasio administration, which has struggled with the numbers of homeless on the streets the past few years.

And in case there's any doubt of that, well, there was this "anonymous" dig:

A Cuomo aide recently said the de Blasio administration “can’t manage the homeless crisis.”

De Blaiso put some of the blame on the state and says he's got a plan to deal with the problem:

The mayor has said the city’s homeless crisis got worse after Cuomo cut a $68 million rental assistance program in 2011. After talks for a joint effort failed, the mayor recently announced a $2.6 billion, 15-year city plan to create 15,000 apartments that would cater mainly to people with mental illness and substance abuse problems.

Currently the city has a "Code Blue" protocol when temperatures hit freezing, with the city doubling down on the outreach to homeless people on the streets and letting people into shelters without the usual intake process.

But the city does not force people off the streets when it hits freezing.

Now they'll have to.

This is just another gin-up in the battle with de Blasio.

Cuomo doesn't actually care about homeless people or the mentally ill.

If he did, he wouldn't have cut funding for a rental subsidy program that kept people from, you know being homeless or threaten to eliminate state funds for homeless shelters (as he did this summer.)

He does care about one-upping de Blasio and making him look as weak and ineffectual as possible.

That's what's going on here.

The state is supposed to provide more resources for municipalities struggling with homelessness as part of Cuomo's mandate, but that remains to be seen.

Often promised monies fail to cover newly imposed mandates and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that is the case here.

And then there's the constitutional issue - is it legal to round people up and force them into shelters if they don't want to go?

Cuomo says it's fine and dandy:

Asked about whether such a move violates civil rights, Cuomo said case law is on his side.

“It’s not even a close call in my opinion or my counsel’s opinion,” he said.

“What we’re saying is these are people who are placing themselves in danger, and if you are placing yourself in danger, we believe as a society you should be given help because you can hurt yourself,” he said. “That is the premise to this action.”

Lots of actions fall under Cuomo's "People who are placing themselves in danger" premise - including smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol to excess or eating foods that are not healthy for you.

Shouldn't those activities be regulated under Cuomo's premise as well?

Enough with the bullshit from Cuomo - he needs to stop trying to one-up de Blasio, work with municipalities struggling with homelessness (not just NYC, btw - homelessness has "exploded" statewide since the recession, Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy), and provide more state resources to deal with the problems instead of cutting them.

In addition, he needs to take responsibility for adding to the problem by cutting state funds to programs that helped alleviate homelessness (like the rental subsidy program), as well as pointing fingers at others for contributing to the problem.

That's what an adult would do.

But Andrew Cuomo is a man-child and so this new "Homeless Off The Streets" mandate is as much about him as it is about solving a vexing social problem.

Preetmas can't come soon enough.

Then maybe we'll see Cuomo himself taken "involuntarily" off the streets.

The Information The Education Department Wants Collected On Students

Stephanie Simon at Politico:

The Education Department’s list of recommended data points, developed with state officials, is exhaustive. It includes what type of dental insurance a student carries, whether she’s allergic to dog dander and whether she belongs to a sorority in college. Each disciplinary incident is broken down into more than a dozen data points, including the type of firearm involved, if applicable.

Other suggested data points relate to early childhood and K-12 teachers, who are included — and linked to their students — in many state databases. The department recommends, for instance, tracking their salaries, retirement benefits and union membership.

The department promotes the list as a “shared vocabulary” that will “streamline the exchange, comparison and understanding of data” if adopted widely. It makes clear states don’t need to embrace every element.

But to be eligible for more than $500 million in federal grants doled out in recent years, states had to commit to comprehensive “P-20” data systems, meaning they start tracking children in preschool and continue for more than two decades.

At least 19 states now link school records to workforce data, tracking which students end up collecting disability or unemployment benefits or enrolling in adult literacy classes. Some states plan to build an even richer data set by linking school records to public health, social service or criminal justice databases. Others aim to start even before pre-K, inputting data on infants enrolled in state-funded programs.

Big Brother is here.

But of course it's all for the kids!

Database advocates say there’s nothing sinister about the projects. On the contrary, they see them as a prosaic — if powerful — tool for improving public policy.

Do kids who struggle with mastering emotions as toddlers get suspended more often than their peers as teens? Are they more likely to drop out of high school? End up in low-wage jobs? And which interventions, at age 3 or 4, might improve their trajectory? The hope is that databases will answer those questions.

Advocates also talk with excitement about using the data to identify an individual student’s precise needs — and the best way to meet them.

“The vision is, this changes outcomes,”  Aimee Rogstad Guidera, executive director of the Data Quality Campaign, a nonprofit advocacy group for data-driven education, said.

It sure does change outcomes - by giving the powers that be even more information to use to control the peasantry:

Another warning from the White House report: “Once information about citizens is compiled for a defined purpose, the temptation to use it for other purposes can be considerable … If unchecked, big data could be a tool that substantially expands government power over citizens.”

That’s what worries Barmak Nassirian, an education policy analyst and father of two who works on privacy issues in his free time.

“Once that rich of a longitudinal database is populated, the urge to tap into it for other reasons will be almost irresistible,” Nassirian said. “Corrections types might want to get into it to understand crime better. I can see Homeland Security looking for terrorists, or the military looking for recruits.”

Even if the database is tapped only by education officials, privacy advocates fear students will be profiled and steered into academic or career paths accordingly.

“The horror story would be what they have in communist China, where they identify kids at age 4 and say, ‘Now you’re going to be a gymnast’,” said Michael Zimmer, director of the Center for Information Policy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

“We don’t want to have it happen that because as an 8-year-old you test a certain way, we’re going to tailor the next eight years of your education a certain way,” Zimmer said.

Yeah, Big Data's for the good of the kids.

Sure.

The truth is, the data-driven education advocates have lost control of the message and they're not going to ever get it back.

Few people in this country trust the government, the corporations or the non-profits these days with anything, let alone their children's information.

Now if we can only get people to see Facebook, Google, etc. in the same way they saw inBloom.

Because the irony is, what parents are fighting against in the K-12 Big Data battles is happening at home on the Internet too.

Even now, Blogger is collecting information on me and you.

Bloomberg: Get Used To Big Brother

The Little Oligarch had a wet willie this morning talking about surveillance and drones and all kinds of other spy equipment and how wonderful that stuff is going to make the world:

Envisioning a future where privacy is a thing of the past, Mayor Bloomberg said Friday it will soon be impossible to escape the eye of Big Brother in the city.

“You wait, in five years, the technology is getting better, they’ll be cameras every place,” Bloomberg said during his weekly radio appearance. “Get used to it — whether you like it or not.”

The Police Department already has a network of its own surveillance cameras throughout the city, including in Times Square. And in Lower Manhattan, an initiative developed after 9/11 known as the “Ring of Steel” integrates the NYPD’s cameras with those of banks and other institutions.

The security measures have drawn scorn from some civil libertarians — but Bloomberg scoffed at privacy concerns on his Friday morning program on WOR-AM.

“The argument against using automation is just this craziness that 'Oh, it’s Big Brother,’” Bloomberg said. “Get used to it!”

In the future, the cameras won't just be limited to buildings and red lights. Some of them will be able to fly, the mayor pointed out.

“It’s scary,” he said. “But what’s the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building? I mean intellectually I have trouble making a distinction. And you know you're gonna have face recognition software. People are working on that.”

Bloomberg warned that drones would be able to peep into a home’s windows — adding that Peeping Tom legislation could help maintain some privacy.

“It's just we’re going into a different world, unchartered...,” he said, adding that you “can't keep the tides from coming in.”

 

Gee, what a great world Bloomberg envisions.

 

I bet many in the oligarchy class like that vision.

 

Total control, total surveillance.

 

What's scary is how Bloomberg thinks that's just inevitable and nothing can be done about it.

 

Here's a guy who wants to get guns out of people's hands even as he and his fellow oligarchs use drones to spy on everybody.

 

Total control, total power.

Bloomberg's New York: Smoking Banned In Times Square

Wow - the arms of Big Brother get wider and wider around the throat of freedom:

NEW YORK — Lawmakers have voted to extend New York City's smoking ban to parks, beaches — and Times Square.

The ban approved Wednesday by a vote of 36-12 is one of the most ambitious outdoor anti-tobacco efforts in the U.S. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn says the new law will save lives and make New York a healthier place to live.

The smoking ban will cover some 1,700 parks and 14 miles of public beaches plus boardwalks, marinas and pedestrian plazas. It goes into effect 90 days after Mayor Michael Bloomberg signs the bill. The signing date has not yet been announced.

A law banning smoking in New York City bars and restaurants went into effect in 2003.

Backers of the ban say even brief exposure to secondhand smoke can pose health risks.

Many smokers say the law will infringe on their rights.

I hate smoking. I smoked for many years (from the age of 14 until the age of 31) and one of the best steps I ever took in life was quitting cigarettes. I don't like being around cigarette smoke, it annoys me when somebody is smoking in a park and blowing it my way, and I hate walking by bars with a Tobacco Row of smokers outside choking up the environment.

That said, these Big Brother pronouncements from Bloomberg and the City wherein they dictate just what people can do and can't do, what people can eat and can't eat, where they can smoke and cannot smoke in the outdoors - well, it is just more and more troubling to me.

An oligarch like Bloomberg thinks he knows better than everybody else about everything. And of course, limiting smoking in outdoor city-owned spaces is within their legal right.

But Times Square?

Hell, I remember the old days when you could buy a gun, knives, fake I.D., cocaine, hookers, and whiskey in Times Square.

Now you can't even smoke a cigarette.

Too much Big Brother from Obama, too much Big Brother from Bloomberg.

Mommy, Daddy, and Chancellor Klein

I love this quote from a high school senior talking about the NYCDOE banning homemade items from bake sales:

“Soon I’ll be in college, and I won’t have Mommy or Daddy or Chancellor Klein sitting right next to me saying, ‘Hey David, don’t eat that, its too high in calories.’”

Don't be so fast, David.

President Obama already plans to track your test scores into your college years.

Don't be surprised if Big Brother Obama doesn't pick up from Big Brother Klein and track your calorie count while you're in college too.