Tag: new york

Report: Zohran Mamdani’s Harlem Grocery Store Already Received $25M in Taxpayer Funds, Bringing Total to $55M

Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s chosen site for a $30 million, government-owned grocery store in East Harlem was approved for a $25 million taxpayer-funded facelift several years ago, setting up the total price tag at a whopping $55 million.

The proposed location is La Marqueta, a food-forward market located between East 111th and East 119th streets under the elevated Metro North tracks on Park Avenue. The purpose of the city-run store would be to offer super low prices because the store would not pay rent or taxes. 

“That same site, however, already won approval from the city’s Economic Development Corporation nearly a decade ago for a $25 million project to redevelop La Marqueta — bringing the total price tag of the market’s proposed makeover to a staggering $55 million, city officials confirmed,” New York Post first reported. 

Stephen Zagor, adjunct associate professor of food studies at Columbia Business School, told the outlet the $30 million price tag was already “an outrageous number,” and “you’d expect the doorknobs and cash registers to be solid gold.”

“And to think there is another $25 million allocated years ago for the rest of La Marqueta, which is well past its prime, I’d think they would have to revisit that,” Zagor added.

Anthony Pena, president of the National Supermarket Association, said city leaders have “not been transparent and open about anything they are doing” and noted that Mamdani never mentioned the location’s previous project in the report. 

Mamdani has allocated approximately $70 million for five government-run stores, one for each borough. Pena said the final cost raises questions about why the city would be spending so much on the East Harlem location specifically. 

“They are going to spend $10 million on a 20,000-square-foot store and $30 million on a 9,000-square-foot store,” Pena said. “There is a massive disconnect right now and there are more questions than answers.”

The Economic Development Corporation (EDC) confirmed to the Post that the $25 million deal and the $30 million store are two separate investment items. 

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Vile ex-Mamdani aide who’s running for Congress called white women ‘ugly colonizers’ in rant against interracial relationships

Vile racial remarks have surfaced from a former aide of New York City socialist Mayor Zorhan Mamdani as she makes a run for Congress.

Darializa Avila Chevalier, who was the lead for Mamdani’s campaign in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan areas, had her racially charged uploads to X in 2019 brought back to light, according to the New York Post.

‘Black men [handshake emoji] Arab men fetishizing ugly colonizer women,’ the 32-year-old allegedly wrote in a September 2019.

Chevalier, who is currently on the campaign trail in hopes of representing Harlem’s 13th Congressional District, also detailed an incident with a ‘white lady’ who questioned her anti-Israeli shirt.

‘I held the door on an old white lady at Popeyes… Her: is that a BDS shirt? Me: Yes, she wrote, referring to the “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” campaign against Israel and Israeli-owned businesses, “Her: Do you know what they do to– Door closed before I could find out what they do,’ she wrote on X in September 2019, as cited by the Post.

The uploads were published by an X account, which at the time was Twitter, named darializabonet, which could no longer be found.

Chevalier trails behind incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat by 14 points, according to a poll conducted toward the end of March by The City.

She also had a successful first quarter of the year, funding outraising Espaillat $270,000 to his $230,000, according to campaign finance reports.

Chevalier launched her bid for Congress in November, following Mamdani’s win for mayor, appearing to ride the moment of the democratic socialist movement.

She has pledged to legalize prostitution and private drug use, as well as abolish prisons, according to her DSA candidate questionnaire.

Additionally, she called for the abolishment of Immigration Customs Enforcement and the end of US military support for Israel.

The Congress hopeful boasted on her campaign site about releasing immigrants who were allegedly illegally detained from ICE detention centers and highlighted how she has protested outside of Trump Tower.

Furthermore, she credited herself as a leader of the ‘tentefada’ encampments at Columbia University, which she attended from 2012 to 2016.

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NYC Mayor Mamdani’s Housing Plan Sparks Property-Rights Alarm Over Forced Transfers To Nonprofits

NYC socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani released “Block by Block: The Housing Plan for a New Era,” which presents a sweeping, deeply troubling blueprint to tackle the metro area’s deepening housing crisis.

Mamdani told the crowd:

When necessary, we will take aggressive legal action to remove negligent owners and property managers. And for buildings that have suffered chronic neglect, we work to transfer ownership to responsible stewards. Stewards include community land trusts, nonprofits, or even the tenants themselves.

X user Difficult Froyo outlined what he described as the obvious playbook by the socialist mayor:

Rent control so landlords cannot raise rent to properly maintain the property. NYC takes the property and gives it to his political friends that donate to him. This is all going to be a theft scheme.

Another X user asked:

“Insane. If this isn’t communism, I don’t know what is. Has America really reached the point of communism?”

Mamdani’s backdoor property-seizure strategy will likely spook lenders, insurers, and small landlords. That’s because it caps landlord income, allows residential buildings to become distressed, then uses the city’s enforcement to push properties into nonprofit, community land trust, or tenant ownership.

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Mamdani’s ‘Balanced Budget’ Is an Accounting Atrocity

In mid-May, after extending the executive deadline, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released his $124.7 billion Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Executive Budget. 

After warning that NYC faces a budget crisis of “historic magnitude” in late April, Mamdani now assures the 8.5 million residents of the Big Apple that the city is on “firm financial footing” after he “balanced the budget” “without raising property taxes” or “slashing services.”

While it is certainly true that Mamdani did not slash services or raise property taxes even higher than they already are, it is ludicrous for him to declare that NYC’s budget is sound and sustainable.

Aside from Mamdani’s smoke-and-mirrors budget summary, the harsh reality is that the Big Apple is bankrupt. 

According to NYC Comptroller Mark Levine, the “$2.2 billion budget shortfall for FY2026 and projected $10.4 billion gap for FY2027… is the first time since the Great Recession that the City faces a budget shortfall of this magnitude.”

Based on Mamdani’s “balanced budget,” the FY 2026 and FY 2027 deficits are no longer a concern. 

Much of the gap has been taken care of by what Mamdani calls a “partnership with Albany.” New Yorkers outside of the Big Apple call it a bailout.

“Thanks to Governor Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, the City secured an additional $4 billion in state support and actions to help stabilize the budget,” Mamdani bluntly put it.

However, Albany could not supply enough money to make the short-term math work.

Thus, Mamdani’s balanced budget relies upon accounting gimmicks and “new tax revenue.”

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Zohran Mamdani Wants NYC to Spend $4.2 BILLION on Services for the Homeless After Claiming City is in ‘Historic’ Budget Crisis

In April, New York City’s new Democratic Socialist (communist) Mayor Zohran Mamdani, claimed that the city was facing a ‘historic’ budget crisis.

Now, he wants to spend $4.2 billion on services for the homeless. So which is it? Does a city in a budget crisis have that kind of cash to spend on homeless services?

Also, does anyone believe there will be any drop in the number of homeless people after he does this? The number could actually go up as a result once it becomes known that the city has money to burn on this.

The New York Post reports:

Mamdani wants to spend stunning $4.2B on NYC homeless services — more than during crippling migrant crisis

Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to spend more money on homeless services next year than his predecessor Eric Adams did during the height of the city’s migrant crisis — proposing a $4.2 billion budget for the agency in 2027.

Mamdani’s plan was rolled out in his latest budget proposal last week, which sought to hike the Department of Homeless Services’ budget by $700 million, from $3.5 billion for 2026 to the towering $4.2 billion sum.

That would be $100 million more than the $4.1 billion budget DHS hit in 2024, at the height of the migrant crisis when the city’s shelter system was housing a peak of about 69,000 asylum seekers.

Then-Mayor Adams had budgeted $2.4 billion for DHS in 2023 — but that number ended up rising to $3.5 billion as the new arrivals ramped up , straining the city system.

More than 230,000 asylum seekers ended up cycling through the Big Apple during the crisis, which began in the spring of 2022. The homeless services department budget was $2.3 billion that year, the first of Adams’ tenure.

How many people working to ‘solve’ the homeless problem will get rich off of this? We have seen that happen in Los Angeles and other cities.

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Mamdani Approves ‘Journalists’ for Mangione Trial, But They’re So Hateful, Even Mangione Disavows Them

Two “fans” of an accused murderer made statements so outrageous this week that even the defendant disavowed them.

Ashley Rojas and Lena Weissbrot call themselves “Mangionistas” on social media, a nod to Luigi Mangione, the young man accused of gunning down United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a pre-dawn attack on Dec. 4, 2024.

In a video interview with the New York Daily News Monday, the two voiced disdain for Thompson and expressed glee over the insurance executive’s death, saying Thompson’s children “are better off without him.”

“I’m saying f*** Brian Thompson. I don’t give a f*** he died,” Rojas told the Daily News.

Weissbrot then taunted the victim’s family.

“His children are better off without him,” she said. “They need to learn to not be like their dad. And enjoy the blood money, kids.”

“He’s responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden,” Weissbrot added, comparing Thompson to the Al Qaeda leader responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks, “and I remember Americans celebrating when Osama bin Laden was killed. It’s not like we don’t understand heroic violence or when violence is good. That’s, like, as American as America gets.”

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New York Governor Signs Bills To Preserve Mandatory Vaccines

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has signed legislation to preserve vaccine requirements for children.

Hochul, on May 15, signed two bills that decouple New York’s vaccine requirements from the federal government, after the Trump administration rolled back recommendations for hepatitis B and other vaccines.

“When public health comes under attack by an anti-science administration, New York fights back,” Hochul, a Democrat, said in a statement.

She added that the legislation “protects access to lifesaving vaccines for New Yorkers of all ages.”

One bill, Assembly Bill 10711, removes language about vaccines needing to be approved by federal regulators. Instead, it says that children must receive vaccines against measles, hepatitis B, and other diseases “in accordance with regulations issued by the commissioner of health of New York.”

Assembly Bill 10710, the other piece of legislation, requires health insurers to cover vaccines recommended by New York’s health commissioner, even if the shots are not recommended by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New York has, in the past, only mandated vaccines approved and recommended by federal health agencies.

“Vaccines remain one of the greatest public health tools in history, protecting individuals, families, and entire communities from serious and preventable diseases,” New York Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said in a statement.

“At a time when misinformation is undermining confidence in science, this legislation reinforces New York State’s commitment to following trusted medical guidance and keeping New Yorkers healthy.”

The Trump administration has narrowed its recommendations for vaccines against several diseases, including COVID-19, hepatitis B, and rotavirus.

The biggest changes came after President Donald Trump issued an order directing officials to review recommendations from other countries and update U.S. recommendations as appropriate in light of the results of the review.

A federal judge in mid-March blocked the updates, concluding that officials did not follow proper procedure when altering the vaccine recommendations.

The Trump administration has appealed.

New York Democratic lawmakers who authored or voted for the bills Hochul signed hailed the development.

“In an era where federal health officials are undermining scientific integrity and sowing skepticism about lifesaving vaccines, New York is making the conscious choice to champion our medical professionals and reaffirm this state’s commitment to the evidence-based practices that have safeguarded communities for generations,” New York Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said in a statement.

Children’s Health Defense, an organization founded by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was among the groups that opposed the legislation.

Michael Kane, director of advocacy for Children’s Health Defense, told The Epoch Times previously that one of the bills would enable the state to require experimental vaccines, as it removed language stating that vaccines needed federal approval.

“It would also allow for foreign entities to determine what vaccines our children must take,” Kane said.

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TOTAL PSYCHOS: Credentialed Female ‘Journalists’ Show Up to Fangirl Alleged Murderer Luigi Mangione at Hearing 

A group of credentialed female journalists showed up at hearing in New York City today for alleged killer Luigi Mangione and made it quite clear that they are fans of the young alleged assassin.

One of the more sickening developments of the last two years has been watching the left turn Mangione into some sort of folk hero.

Watching these female journalists talk is like going back in history to the days of the Manson Girls, who showed up at the trials of Charles Manson to show their support for him.

The New York Post reports:

Bloodthirsty Luigi Mangione fangirls unapologetically celebrate CEO’s assassination: ‘F—k Brian Thompson,’ ‘His children are better off without him’

A trio of bloodthirsty fans of accused assassin Luigi Mangione — who were granted press passes by City Hall — spouted vile hate and unapologetic calls for political violence from a Manhattan courthouse steps Monday.

Self-proclaimed “Mangionistas” Abril Rios, Ashley Rojas and Lena Weissbrot proudly showed off the passes they received from Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration, apparently for their online content documenting Mangione’s upcoming trial for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

But the credentialed “reporters” chillingly made no bones about supporting Mangione’s alleged vendetta to strike fear into the hearts of healthcare executives such as Thompson.

Weissbrot, clad in a garish neon green, pink and purple striped ensemble, chimed in with an even more reprehensible response.

“His children are better off without him,” she said about the victim. “They need to learn to not be like their dad. And enjoy the blood money, kids.

“He’s responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden, and I remember Americans celebrating when Osama bin Laden was killed. It’s not like we don’t understand heroic violence, or, like, when violence is good.”

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Democrat NY Congressional Candidate Backed by Radical Mamdani Pushing “Trans Bill of Rights”- Wants Taxpayers to Foot the Bill for Surgeries, Housing and More

Radical New York State Assemblymember Claire Valdez, a longtime leader in NYC-DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) and backed by Marxist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani,  is running in the Democratic primary for New York’s 7th congressional district.

Valdez is making sure that ‘trans rights’ are front and center in her campaign.

In an interview released on Friday, Valdez told podcast host Mike from PA, “When we talk about trans rights and bodily autonomy and we talk about universal programs like social housing, like Medicare for all, like all of these programs, you know, we know that trans people, and trans youth especially, are often the highest at risk for homelessness, retaliation at their jobs.”

“So we have to be focused, really enshrining their rights within universal programs and making sure that Medicare for All includes gender-affirming care and health care for trans folks.”

“We need to make sure that we’re enshrining their rights in a Trans Bill of Rights and in workplaces.”

“And making sure that there’s real housing that is available, you know, for everyone, but especially trans people who are most at risk of being homeless or kicked out of their homes.”

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Hantavirus Case Reported at NY High School Not Linked to Deadly Cruise Ship Outbreak

Health officials in Ontario County, New York, are investigating a suspected case of hantavirus involving a student at Geneva High School, just after a deadly hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship sparked international concerns about a COVID-2.0 scenario.

According to health officials, the case is not connected to the rare Andes strain that killed three passengers aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship and prompted the quarantine of 18 Americans, including three New Yorkers.

Officials emphasize this is a locally acquired infection typical of the hantavirus strains already present in the United States, and there is no evidence of risk to other students, staff, or the general public.

The Ontario County Department of Health received the alert Thursday morning.

Geneva City Schools sent a letter to parents Friday afternoon confirming the investigation and reassuring families that the situation poses no threat to the school community.

“The Ontario County Department of Health is investigating a suspected case of locally acquired hantavirus involving a Geneva High School student,” the district said in the announcement. “The Department of Health has advised that there is no evidence of risk to other students or staff related to this situation. Health officials have also emphasized that this situation is not tied to the hantavirus strain currently receiving national media attention.”

Ontario County Public Health Director Kate Ott described the timing as “horrible” given the ongoing national attention to the cruise ship outbreak, but stressed that the student’s symptoms have been mild fatigue, aches, and lethargy for several weeks, according to a report from local station WHAM.

“We thought surely this can’t be Hantavirus in relation to what’s going on in the media at this time,” Ott said.

“The case is mild, and hantavirus is not always mild,” Ott added. “It can be really severe, so we’re really grateful for that.”

She noted this is only the second suspected hantavirus case in Ontario County in the past two decades.

The student is not required to quarantine.

Officials are urging residents to take standard precautions when cleaning areas that may have rodent droppings, such as attics, cabins, sheds, and garages, by wearing masks and gloves and wetting down debris before sweeping to avoid aerosolizing particles.

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