Let Long Island Secede: Samantha Bee Tackles New York Naysayers (VIDEO)

After devoting the bulk of his show to Iran's elections, Jon Stewart tossed to a Samantha Bee segment on the Long Island secession movement. If you don't know what that is, don't worry, no one does.

Long Island, the body of land that extends from the end of Queens into the Atlantic Ocean, boasts suburbs and summer houses alike, along with people who hate New York State. Bee sat down with lawmakers and Italian guys who hang out in bars to ask probing questions with ridiculous answers. After a little light gay bashing from the bar boys and heavy nonsense from legislator Edward Romaine, one might start to think getting rid of this place isn't such a bad idea, but then where would we all get stuck in traffic on Friday afternoons?


WATCH:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Long Island Wants to Secede
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Comments

[TheJibreelaMonsters]

Take us with you, please

-Upstate New York aka Dairy Land

[larry278]

The next few years will be interesting as more states go bankrupt in a de facto sense. These states may be reduced to terrs when federal courts declare states bankrupt in a de jure sense. NY & the US Congress may allow LI to secede from NY but LI may be organized as a terr & won't be admitted to the union as a state till LI proves that LI can meet all duties of a state. This could be very intersting. Who will pay for the operations of SUNY at Stony Brook if LI is allowed to secede from NY? Who will subsidize the operations of the former LIRR in Suffolk & Nassau counties when they secede from NY?
The Terr or State of LI will have some problems if it secedes from NY.

[brooklyncitizen]

"Jersey"- ..."sn't that like beating up your conjoined twin?"
Priceless.

[brooklyncitizen]

Long Island gave us the Buttafucoes, Levittown and Bill O'Reilly...for the longest time I though tit was the water...whatever the reason it is populated by seriously messed up folks.

[omobob]

It’s one word people. Just incase you make it to NYC remember, it’s How-ston not Hue-ston and Long Island is pronounced Lun-guy-lend. One word.

[sja11]

hahah the cival war documentary spoof part had me rolling on the floor

[DSOTM]

Long Island is actually 4 counties, Kings, Queens, Nassau and Suffolk.

Kings and Queens are part of NYC, so it is stupid to say that Long Island should be its own state when two of its 4 counties are part of NYC.

[brooklyncitizen]

Kings(Brooklyn) and Queens counties are geographically part of the "long island" but they are part of the municipality of New York city. Nassau and Suffolk counties are what people are speaking of when they refer to Long island and they are not part of New York City....I'm all for letting them secede.

[ManhattanGirl]

they are actually just talking about Nassau and Suffolk forming its own state. Long Island is composed as well of Brooklyn and Queens. I'm not sure anyone is really thinking that Brooklyn and Queens will leave New York City to join with Nassau and Suffolk to form a new state.

[brooklyncitizen]

Nope...though Brooklyn was in fact its own city before we built that bridge.

[dynwitch]

This male cowboy posturing has nearly destroyed our nation.

[Tblack]

Clapping....amen

[cjtolmie]

You can go anywhere and get 20 people to make idiots of themselves for the camera. It's not Long Island. As a LI'er there are many things that need improvement there, but the truth is we generate a lot of money for the rest of NY state, and it is a shame that so little of it comes back here for the people who work hard for it.

[ourwinter]

Ithaca, NY has the highest taxes in the state actually, in upstate, NY. Look it up.

NY is one of the weird states in the union that has one truly major metropolis on one part of the state which creates a major inbalance in the distribution of how tax dollars are allocated. The infrastructure and development of the state circulates around NYC as opposed to an opposing city. Other state examples: LA vs. San Francisco, Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia, Tampa vs. Miami, Houston vs. Dallas. The spill over of populations from NYC spreads into Mass, Maine, Connecticut and yes, to a certain extent the population of LI.

[DSOTM]

Long Island would go belly up in 2 years if they seceded.

NYC is the financial life blood to the entire state.

As for the Daily Show, I think their are three very pissed off Italians because of how foolish they were made to look, rightfully so.

[GreenDayJohn]

New Yorkers are really smart

[OC4Obama4Pres]

Hahahahaha! Thank you for that laugh.

[FrankWillsGhost]

Actually, there was a more serious side to this movement going back to the 70's. There was actually a show on PBS (Ch.13) called "The 51st State" and they debated issues about southern NY vs. Northern NY. Don't forget: Manhattanites call people from outside Manhattan (Brooklyn, Queens, NJ, LI), "bridge & tunnel people".

Here's the deal: Long Island hosts 3.5 million workers into NYC. They pay LOTS of taxes. For every dollar paid by a Long Islander, they get .35 back. The rest goes to NYC and upstate NY. (Actually, there is a huge outflow of State Taxes from NYC + LI to upstate NY.

Hence, the secession movement.

There are similar disgruntle-ites with similar arguements for:

SOCAL vs. NOCAL (Southern California vs. Northern California), Miami/Dade vs. the rest of FL, Southern Maine vs. Northern Maine, etc. etc.

I read an article that says that people always look to their local interests first and hence begin to disenfranchise themselves from their next largest geographical boundary.

[disgustedbyitall]

There are also a lot of New Yorkers paying big property taxes on Long Island. And a lot of gays. And a lot of very corrupt politicians (is that redundant?). And a stinking heap of hypocrisy.

[DSOTM]

What does "A lot of gays" have to do with anything?

[kareemachan]

As a person living in the PNW, I personally support Earnest Callenbach's vision of Ecotopia - only I would add northern California for the wine! ;-)

[jeffp26]

Long Island can go anytime. Don't let the door hit it where the good lord split it.

[2bsure]

I wish Comedy Central would produce a "Best of Samantha Bee" DVD.
She is consistently sharp, funny and, unlike some of the other regulars on the Daily Show, she never forgets that the story isn't about her.

[ramal]

I agree, Samantha Bee is absolutlely the best "reporter" on the Daily Show. She should have her own show on Comedy Central. Oh, by the way, just let Long Island go with Canada or better yet become it's own nation. Fifty stars on the flag are enough.

[lisaman]

I agree, did you see the "choice" piece she did at the Republican National Convention? It was beyond funny! But this guy who didn't know what a state was cracked me up. He was like, Staten Island to which Samantha Bee agains says, state, then the guy is like, Canada. Just too funny! I love the Daily Show!!!