Tag: new york

NYC driving school rigged driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants — even if they couldn’t drive: DA

A Big Apple driving school paid off DMV examiners to fraudulently fast-track driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants — even if they had no clue how to drive, Staten Island prosecutors said Tuesday.

T&E Driving School in Queens took cash from Chinese immigrants — many of whom didn’t even speak English — and paid off a crew of Department of Motor Vehicles employees on Staten Island to illegally obtain driver’s licenses, District Attorney Michael McMahon said at a press conference.

The crackdown, dubbed Operation Road Test, took down the ring in a joint investigation with state investigators and the US Department of Homeland Security, prosecutors said.

“Our investigation found that T&E Driving School blatantly flouted the laws and procedures that are necessary to ensure the public safety on the road,” George Ioannidis, assistant special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in New York said Tuesday.

“As alleged T&E utilized social media and strategic advertising to Target exploited members of the Chinese community and guaranteed individual driver’s licenses regardless of their immigration status, language, and even their ability to operate a vehicle,” he said.

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Socialists Don’t Understand Motherhood

Self-proclaimed democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani just won New York City’s mayoral primary, and, in a city crawling with Democrats who like free stuff, he’s the favorite to win November’s general election, replacing Eric Adams.

Mamdani—a 33-year-old Bowdoin graduate, with a multimillionaire filmmaker mother and a Columbia-professor father—styles himself a champion for the working class, someone who really understands what they need. 

As such, he advocates for universal child care. “After rent, the biggest cost for New York’s working families is childcare. It’s literally driving them out of the city: New Yorkers with children under six are leaving at double the rate of all others,” reads his platform. “The burden falls heaviest on mothers, who are giving up paying jobs to do unpaid childcare.” He promises to implement free child care for all babies and children aged 6 weeks and above, until they start school at age 5. He wants child care workers to have wage parity with public school teachers

This program could take the form of an expansion of the city’s existing 3K program, or could be an entirely new state-run day care program. It’s not totally clear what he intends. His platform is characteristically heavy on the graphic design, light on the details. 

But Mamdani, and all others who advocate universal publicly-funded child care, mistake the needs that mothers actually have—the things they say they want, the types of child care arrangements they favor—assuming all parents want the state to sublimate their roles. Socialists pretend they want to support mothers and motherhood. But they don’t understand what type of help mothers need at all.

In 2022, the think tank Institute for Family Studies asked mothers of children under 18 what their “ideal situation” would be, in terms of time spent with kids vs. working. They found that 42 percent of mothers wanted to work full-time; 32 percent had an ideal of part-time work; and 22 percent would ideally choose no paid work at all. A Pew Research Center survey from three years prior found much the same: Half of moms said it would be “best for them” to work full-time, with 30 percent choosing part-time work and 19 percent choosing none at all. As of 2018, the majority of mothers with kids under 18—55 percent—are engaged in full-time work, up from 34 percent in 1968. And the share of mothers with little kids—those who have not yet entered school—in the work force went from 8 percent in 1940 to over 60 percent by 2000. It has only risen since. 

Of course, “in the work force” isn’t necessarily the same as “not engaged in the daily labor of childrearing.” The advent of remote work has enabled more creative arrangements than ever before, with parents increasingly using the shift system and staggering work hours. Socialists don’t give much credit to the many ways companies accommodate working parents—whether corporate overlords mean to or not—when they allow greater flexibility in the workday and for different people to work at different paces and in different shifts. What can benefit the company can also benefit the family.

“An ideal childcare system,” writes Ivana Greco, a writer/homeschooler/lawyer-by-training with four kids, “takes into account the full range of ‘childcare,’ including parents, extended family, friends, and neighbors.” It “considers and respects the wishes and needs of individual families, which will be different both from family to family and from time period to time period.” It should allow for flexibility, which means it should provide “access to drop-in, part-time, or irregular hours” child care. It’s “mindful of cost, broadly speaking, including second-order effects and non-economic costs.” 

Mamdani’s proposal meets zero out of four of Greco’s criteria. Socialists, in general, don’t tailor to such criteria—or even necessarily understand it or wish to honor it—when crafting plans for universal child care.

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Zohran Mamdani: End Goal Is ‘Seizing the Means of Production’

Self-proclaimed socialist and Democrat nominee for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, said in 2021 that his “end goal” is “seizing the means of production,” despite recently claims that he is not a communist.

Mamdani, a New York state assemblyman and member of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), shared his method to “win socialism” while appearing virtually at a DSA conference to mobilize young people in February 2021:

What the purpose is about this entire project — it’s not simply to raise class consciousness, but to win socialism. And obviously, raising class consciousness is a critical part of that, but making sure that we have candidates that both understand that and are willing to put that forward at every which moment that they have … We have to continue to elect more socialists, and we have to ensure that we are unapologetic about our socialism.

Naming other issues that socialists “firmly believe in,” Mamdani went on to highlight the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and the “end goal of seizing the means of production, where we do not have the same level of support at this very moment.”

“Organize for what is correct and for what is right, and to ensure that over time, we can bring people to that issue,” the mayoral candidate continued. “The ramifications of victory here is the difference between life and death for so many of our brothers and sisters and family beyond the binary across this borough of Queens.”

He added that socialism will bring policies like “sex work being decriminalized.”

Advocating for “seizing the means of production” is a cornerstone of Marxist and communist thought, as it was popularized by philosopher Karl Marx.

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The Absurdity of Government Grocery Stores Exposes the Flaws of Public Schools

Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary partly on his plan to open five city-owned grocery stores—one in each of New York’s boroughs. The idea is as absurd as it sounds, but it’s a useful lens through which to view another government-run institution we’ve accepted for far too long: the public school system.

The case against government grocery stores is straightforward. Government providers have no incentive to spend money wisely or respond to customers’ needs. Unlike private businesses, which must compete for customers by offering quality goods at reasonable prices, government entities get paid regardless of performance. Tax dollars flow into the system whether the shelves are stocked or empty, whether the service is stellar or abysmal.

This lack of accountability breeds inefficiency and waste. Government employees, shielded by bureaucratic inertia and powerful unions, often see more tax dollars as the solution to every problem, rather than innovation or better management.

In the early days of the Soviet Union, state-controlled grocery stores and food distribution systems led to catastrophic mismanagement, with millions dying during the Russian famine of 1921 to 1922. Those weren’t just government-run, of course; unlike Mamdani’s proposed shops, they were government monopolies. But Venezuela’s recent experiment with government-controlled grocery stores has been a disaster, even with a degree of private competition allowed: Chronic shortages have left shelves empty and citizens queuing for hours for basic goods like bread and milk.

These disasters highlight how government control stifles competition, kills innovation, and leaves citizens with fewer alternatives when the system fails.

Now consider the public school system. It operates under the same flawed principles. Like Mamdani’s hypothetical grocery stores, public schools are funded by tax dollars regardless of their outcomes. In New York City, for example, public schools spend about $40,000 per student annually, yet the 2024 Nation’s Report Card shows less than a quarter of their 8th graders are proficient in math.

They face little pressure to improve because families are trapped by residential assignment, forced to send their children to the school dictated by their ZIP code. This setup gives government schools more monopoly power than a state-run grocery store would have. At least with grocery stores, you could drive to another one. With public schools, families without the means to relocate or afford private alternatives are left with limited options.

Mamdani’s campaign website calls for “public money” for “public” grocery stores, echoing the tired mantra of teachers’ unions, who argue that “public money” should fund only “public schools.” This rhetoric is a deliberate tactic to protect their monopoly, blocking school choice reforms that would allow parents to direct education funds to better options. The unions’ stance, like Mamdani’s, prioritizes government control over outcomes, ignoring the reality that too many public schools fail to deliver.

Teachers’ unions, like the grocery store unions Mamdani might envision, prioritize their members’ interests over those of students or families. They fight for higher salaries, better benefits, and less work, consistently resisting reforms such as merit pay or school choice that would introduce more competition or accountability. The National Education Association spent $66 million on political activities in 2021, largely to protect the status quo. This entrenched power structure ensures that the system serves adults, not children.

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Muslim Communist Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani Says Illegal Aliens Have ‘Kept New York Safe For Decades’

Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has claimed that the policy of protecting illegal aliens from deportation has “kept New York safe for decades.”

In an interview with NBC’s Meet The Press, Mamdani also pledged to “fight back” against ICE should he win election in November.

Here is a transcript of the exchange:

WELKER: Let’s talk about immigration and deportation. Are you committed to keeping New York as a sanctuary city?

MAMDANI: Absolutely. Because ultimately, we’ve seen that this is a policy that has kept New Yorkers safe for decades. It’s a policy that had previously been defended by Democrats and Republicans alike until the fear-mongering of this current mayor.

It’s a policy that we’ve seen ensures that New Yorkers can get out of the shadows and into the full life of the city that they belong to. And it’s one that I will be proud to stand up for.”

WELKER: Well, you know, the borders are. Tom Homan has said that he is planning to deploy ICE agents to New York worksite enforcement to essentially increase and enhance the number of ICE agents here.

If that happens on your watch, how do you plan to handle it

MAMDANI:  We have to stand up and fight back, and we haven’t seen that from our current mayor, who has instead been working with the Trump administration to assist in their goal of building the single largest deportation force in American history.

I mean, we saw ICE agents arrest a migrant at Federal Plaza. We saw NYPD officers arresting a pastor who was peacefully observing that arrest.

Those days are going to come to an end when I’m the mayor. The NYPD’s job is to create public safety in the city, not to assist ICE agents in their mission to attack the very fabric of this city.

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Blue states with net-zero emissions goals consider nuclear as hopes for 100% wind and solar fade

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), Monday directed the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to develop and construct a nuclear power plant of not less than one gigawatt. The new plant was needed, Hochul said in her announcement, in order “to support a reliable and affordable electric grid, while providing the necessary zero-emission electricity to achieve a clean energy economy.” 

It was a surprising announcement for a state that closed and dismantled the Indian Point nuclear power plant only five years ago. The consideration of nuclear in the energy mix is part of a pattern seen in other blue states committed to eliminating electricity generated from fossil fuels. California has now delayed the closure of its only nuclear power plant, and Michigan is looking to restart a previously shuttered nuclear power plant. 

In all three cases, it appears that the states are coming to grips with the reality that intermittent wind and solar backed up by short-duration, expensive grid-scale batteries won’t be enough to supply the power needs of the state, especially as AI places more demands on the grid. Still clinging to the hope of a fossil fuel-free grid, these states are looking to nuclear as a more politically tenable option. 

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Zohran Mamdani Admits He Hates Capitalism… Allied With Socialist Operative Linked To Marxist Terror Group

Americans were stunned last week when foreign-born, self-proclaimed socialist Zohran Mamdani used CNN as a platform to denounce capitalism—the very system that transformed this country from frontier towns into a global superpower. Capitalism has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, built a middle class, and fueled rapid technological innovation—outcomes impossible under socialist regimes, as evidenced by an imploding Europe adopting welfare-state models or failed communist states like Cuba. Yet Mamdani chose to vilify it on national television. His profoundly anti-American rhetoric didn’t emerge out of nowhere—one has to wonder whether it’s rooted in foreign influence or ideology imported from an adversary.

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Not Parody: Socialist NYC Mayoral Candidate Lectures Billionaire About How DEI Is Good for Business

As if the Democrat Party — which still hasn’t recovered from the decisive beatdown it suffered at the hands of President Donald Trump in the 2024 election — wasn’t already in a self-inflicted free fall, recent events have only accelerated the decline.

First, Trump’s successful attack on key Iranian nuclear sites, which Democrats frantically continue to downplay (lie about), was a “yuuge,” (as Trump might say) setback for the TDS-riddled among us. 

Then, Zohran Mamdani, the so-called “Democratic Socialist” candidate for mayor of New York City, bested former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in Tuesday’s Democrat primary. Given the demographics of NYC, Mamdani is the hands-down favorite to become the Big Apple’s next mayor. 

Incidentally, I wonder if Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson might soon become the second-worst mayor in America, but I digress.

Anyway, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is among those who fear for the future of NYC, often dubbed “the financial center of the world,” given Mamdani’s socialist positions. Ackman posted an extensive missive on X (formerly, Twitter) on Thursday, in which he shared his concerns about Mamdani. Ackman wrote, in part (emphasis, mine):

I awoke this morning gravely concerned about New York City. I thought “What has NYC become that an avowed socialist who has supported defunding the police, whose solution to lowering food prices is city-owned supermarkets, who doesn’t understand that freezing rents will only reduce the supply of housing, who has no experience managing an organization — let alone a city with a $100+ billion budget and a $2 trillion economy — and who believes chants for ‘Globalizing the Intifada’ are acceptable, wins the Democratic Primary.

After speaking with those supported @ZohranKMamdani, I believe that he won the primary largely not due to his policies, but rather because he is a superb politician who ran a remarkable and inspiring campaign. He is intelligent and articulate. He is young and charming, and he successfully played down incriminating @X posts and statements from his past, pitching a joyful campaign of unity.

Isn’t that — the bolded passage — always what wins elections for Democrats? Think about it. 

For example, Barack Obama soared into the presidency on January 20, 2009, after having declared at the 2004 Democratic National Convention: “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States of America.” Yet, when Obama became president, he set about dividing America on class and racial bases for eight years — and then some. 

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NYC Mayoral Candidate Mamdani: Tax Whites and the Rich

Socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is not shy about playing race and class cards in his campaign platform proposal to hike property taxes for “richer and whiter neighborhoods.”

Calling it a “soak-the-rich” proposal, the New York Post described the platform as an effort to fix the city’s “notoriously skewed property tax system,” where high-end brownstones are assessed at lower rates than homes and rentals in lower-income neighborhoods.

The race-based language is contained in Mamdani’s extensive “Stop the Squeeze on NYC Homeowners” campaign material.

It promises that a Mamdani administration will:

Shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods: The property tax system is unbalanced because assessment levels are artificially capped, so homeowners in expensive neighborhoods pay less than their fair share. The Mayor can fix this by pushing class assessment percentages down for everyone and adjusting rates up, effectively lowering tax payments for homeowners in neighborhoods like Jamaica and Brownsville while raising the amount paid in the most expensive Brooklyn brownstones.

The Post account acknowledged that “Democrats and many Republicans have long pushed to fix the out-of-whack system that ends up hitting poorer, often largely black and brown neighborhoods, with higher property taxes than their neighbors in swanky areas that tend to be majority Caucasian.”

But the candidate’s language drew fire from conservative critics.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon threatened to investigate Zohran Mamdani over his proposal to tax ‘whiter neighborhoods’  if he becomes the mayor, calling race-based policies “illegal.”

One former northeast resident, now a Florida-based commentator, called the candidate a “racist” on X.

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Trump DOJ Sends Warning to Muslim Communist NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani After He Unveils His Racist, Anti-White Housing Plan

The new face of the Democratic Party may find himself in serious trouble with President Trump’s Administration should he proceed with an overtly racist housing plan in the name of equity.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, Muslim communist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani plans to fund his radical transformation of the city if he is elected: he will hike property taxes for “richer and whiter neighborhoods.”

The policy memo, ‘Stop the Squeeze on NYC Homeowners,’ promises to address a “deeply inequitable system, using the full power of the mayor’s office to both address the system directly and working with legislators at the state level to win necessary reforms” by “shift[ing] the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods.”

If one were to substitute the word “whiter” for “blacker,” the response from the left and media would deservedly be brutal. But in today’s Democratic Party, anti-white bigotry is not only tolerated but encouraged.

Moreover, this racist policy would fund several key policies of his, such as $65 million in taxpayer money on ‘gender affirming care’, including for minors.

This isn’t “progressivism.” It’s straight-up communism.

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