Tag: new york

Nuclear Watchdog Groups Mock NYC’s Atomic Bomb Preparedness Video As ‘Delusional’

Peace advocates on Tuesday derided a New York City public service announcement meant to prepare residents for a nuclear attack as a 21st-century version of the absurd Duck and Cover civil defense film of the early Cold War era.

“So, there’s been a nuclear attack,” the narrator of the NYC Emergency Management video begins. “Don’t ask me how or why, just know the big one has hit.”… “So what do we do?” she continues before instructing viewers to “get inside, fast,” “stay inside… and get clean immediately,” and “stay tuned; follow media for more information.”

“All right? You’ve got this,” the woman assures viewers.

While New York City Mayor Eric Adams called the PSA a “great idea,” some critics accused officials of unwarranted fearmongering amid increased nuclear tensions with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and NATO’s response.

Others lambasted the PSA as latest in a line of nuclear war informationals like the U.S. Civil Defense Administration’s Duck and Cover and the British government’s Protect and Survive films that offer little more than delusive contentment for millions of people who likely would not survive a full-scale thermonuclear attack.

“The reality is, if this comes to pass, you don’t ‘got this,'” tweeted the International Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its work leading to a landmark treaty outlawing nukes.

Calling the PSA “outrageously misguided,” ICAN said it’s difficult to get inside fast during a nuclear explosion “when, in a matter of seconds, houses up to 175 kilometers away from the epicenter crumble like they are made of cards.”

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The Left Is Doing Its Best To Make Self-Defense A Crime

The same left-wing prosecutors who let rioting run rampant and let repeat offenders out on low bail also want to make it difficult for you to defend yourself.

We don’t yet know all the details about an apparent fatal stabbing of an agitated man by bodega clerk Jose Alba in New York City last week, but we do know that the clerk was quickly charged with murder and initially held at Rikers Island on $250,000 bail while video surveillance seems to indicate he likely acted in self-defense. Surveillance videos show the unnamed girlfriend of Austin Simon, the man Alba killed who had a history of felony arrests and was out on parole, becoming upset with Alba when her card was declined and threatening to “bring my n– down here and he gonna f-ck you up.”

Another video shows Simon walking behind the counter to Alba, shoving him, and getting in his face before Alba stood up and appeared to try to walk past Simon, at which point the two wrestled until Alba eventually stabbed the other man. “I don’t want a problem,” Alba told Simon when he walked in, according to the New York Post. Further footage appears to show the girlfriend pulling out a knife of her own and slashing Alba, although she has not been charged.

After outrage over Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s decision to charge Alba, who has no prior criminal record, with murder, and his pursuit of such a high bail while Alba languished at Rikers, the bail amount was reduced — but the charges have so far not been dropped. In the meantime, GoFundMe deleted a fundraising page for Alba’s defense, in a move that has become common for the platform when its leaders don’t agree with a cause.

A fearless citizen with the will and means to defend himself is a threat to left-wing bureaucrats who want to boss him around — like they did when they knocked on doors sniffing out “unauthorized” religious services and gatherings during Covid lockdowns, or when they allowed lawless riots to hold cities hostage during the summer of 2020. Bragg’s decision to crack down on what appears to at least potentially be a strong case of self-defense may not have been an intentional ploy to criminalize self-protective autonomy, but it does follow a long string of actions and attitudes on the left that are hostile to the idea of a law-abiding citizen using a lethal weapon to protect himself and his property.

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Trouble brews: Audit finds ex-mayor Bill de Blasio cooked books to hide $224M between 2015-2021

Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has been accused by the city’s comptroller of using gimmicky accounting tricks to “hide” nearly $250 million in costs for a heavily subsidized ferry system that had reportedly been used primarily by the wealthy.

“We rely on the city to be honest in how much things cost so that we can make clear, shared decisions about where the money is going. When hide-the-ball is played with any amount — certainly with a quarter of a billion dollars — you can’t have confidence that your city is providing the truth,” comptroller Brad Lander said at a press conference Wednesday.

His remarks came after his release of a devastating 50-page audit that outlined issue after issue after issue with the city’s ferry service.

The audit found that the Economic Development Corporation, the agency that runs the ferry network, “did not disclose over $224 million in expenditures as ferry-related in its audited financial statements.”

For instance, the EDC “understated the City’s subsidy for the ferry operations by $2.08, $2.10, $3.98 and $4.29 for Fiscal Years 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively.”

In 2020, the city spent $14.57 per every ride, yet reported only spending $10.59. Meanwhile, the mostly wealthy “residents, commuters, tourists, and leisure riders” who used the ferry service paid only $2.75 per ticket.

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NY Governor Ignores Supreme Court Ruling and Issues New Regulations Requiring Social Media History to Get Concealed Carry Permit

Now New Yorkers who request a concealed carry permit must provide the social media history to authorities.

Then government bureaucrats will decide if you qualify for a permit.

What could go wrong?

Governor Hochul tweeted this out on Saturday.

These new rules totally disregard the Supreme Court ruling earlier this week that New York’s law that includes strict rules for concealed carry in the state.

In their decision, the Supreme Court struck down the New York law requiring people to demonstrate a particular need for carrying a gun in order to get a license to carry one in public.

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‘I Don’t Need To Have Numbers’: Gov. Hochul Trying To Pass Strict Gun Control Says She Has No Evidence To Support Her

Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she doesn’t “need to have numbers” to back up her strict gun control proposals.

Hochul is set to convene a special session Thursday to push through new tighter gun control restrictions after the Supreme Court recently overturned a nearly century-old law that restricted concealed carry permits. Among the proposals include banning firearms from government buildings, courthouses, hospitals and schools. Another proposal would ban firearms at any private business unless the business has a sign explicitly stating guns are allowed, CBS 6 Albany reported.

Speaking at a press briefing Wednesday, Hochul said after the high court overturned the law, gun owners would carry more.

“All of a sudden now you’re on the streets. Now you’re going to bars, this is not the Wild West, this is New York State,” Hochul said.

A reporter then asked whether Hochul had any data to support her gun control push.

“Do you have the numbers to show that it’s the concealed carry permit holders that are committing crimes? Because the lawful gun owner will say that you’re attacking the wrong person, that it’s really the people getting the guns illegally that are causing the violence not the people going and getting the permit legally. Do you have the numbers?”

“I don’t need to have numbers. I don’t need to have a data point to say this. I know that I have a responsibility to the people of this state to have sensible gun safety laws, and this one was not devised by the Hochul administration. It comes out of an administration from 1908. I don’t need a data point to say I have a responsibility to protect the people of this state.”

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Is THIS where NYPD’s subway resources are going, Mayor Eric? Outrage as beloved busker with his dancing toy cats is taken down by six cops while serious crime soars and terrified commuters REFUSE to take train

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said he was stunned by how bad Big Apple subway riders had it until he rode the subway himself last week and realized how poorly cops were being used to crack down on crime underground.

As subway crime continues to spike – rising nearly 40 percent from the first half of last year – Adams, in an exclusive interview with the New York Post, said he patrolled the transit system himself late at night for three hours and didn’t care for what he saw. 

‘Let me tell you something: When I started looking into this, I was shocked at how bad this place is,’ Adams told the Post.

Days before the mayor touted his awakening on the hazards of subway travel, a video emerged of at least six NYPD officers arresting busker John Ajilo, a saxophone player with the catch phrase ‘Dancing is Happiness.’

‘I was shut down, handcuffed and taken to the police station for performing in the same spot 34th Herald Square I have been performing [in] on and off for about five years,’ he said on his GoFundMe page, which has already collected over $30,000. 

Mayor Adams said he first knew he had to do something about subway crime about three weeks in office.

‘It was probably, the third — third or fourth week in January. I spent a lot of time in the office,’ he said.  ‘And I started peeling back layers and what it started to unveil to me is how we just had this good shell, but underneath — it’s bad.’

The New York City subway is run by the New York City Transit Authority, which falls under the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority, controlled by the chairman, Janno Lieber, who was appointed by Gov. Kathy Hochul and confirmed by the state Senate in January.

The mayor appoints several members of the MTA board, but has little control over the operation and maintenance of the system.

Ridership on the subway is just under 60 percent of what it was pre-pandemic, with roughly 3.4 million daily commuters using the system.

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Supreme Court Strikes Down New York’s Unconstitutional Concealed-Carry Gun Law

The Supreme Court voted 6–3 on June 23 to strike down New York state’s draconian concealed-carry gun permitting system on constitutional grounds.

The Supreme Court has been strengthening Second Amendment protections in recent years and observers have said the court’s 6–3 conservative supermajority could help expand gun ownership protections. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects “the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,” and in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), it held that this right “is fully applicable to the States.”

The ruling comes amid rising crime rates, activist demands to defund police departments, and a Biden administration push to strengthen gun control policies. A gun control package, introduced in the wake of a series of high-profile mass shootings, is moving forward in Congress.

The Empire State’s gun permit law, like laws in seven other states, generally requires an applicant to demonstrate “proper cause” in order to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun in public.

New York makes it a crime to possess a firearm without a license, whether inside or outside the home. An individual who wants to carry a firearm outside his home may obtain an unrestricted license to “have and carry” a concealed “pistol or revolver” if he can prove that “proper cause exists” for doing so, according to state law. An applicant satisfies the “proper cause” requirement only if he can “demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community,” according to a 1980 ruling by the Supreme Court of New York in Klenosky v. New York City Police Department.

The specific issue before the court was whether the state’s denial of the petitioning individuals’ applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violates the U.S. Constitution.

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New York put out over $200K for drag shows in NYC public schools

New York, the state and the city, has paid over $200,000 to drag performers for appearances in New York City public schools since 2018.

The state funds came via its Council on the Arts ($50,000) while the Big Apple’s from its Departments of Education, Cultural Affairs, Youth and Community Development, and Department of Transportation ($157,000), the New York Post reports.

Since January of this year, the group Drag Story Hour NYC (formerly the Drag Queen Story Hour NYC) has made 49 appearances in 34 schools, elementary through senior high. In May, the group made $46,000 for its appearances at schools, festivals and libraries.

New York City Council has allocated $80,000 for Drag Story Hour NYC this year alone, more than triple the 2020 funding.

Drag Story Hour NYC members usually “read aloud from a list of books that teach acceptance and inclusion, including children’s classics like ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ and ‘The Rainbow Fish.’” But other books “overtly celebrate” gender fluidity such as “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish.”

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“Closed for Fumigation”: BLM Chapter Co-Founder Arrested After Hundreds of Cockroaches Released in New York Courthouse

The co-founder of the Black Lives Matter chapter in Upstate New York was arrested last week after left-wing demonstrators released hundreds of cockroaches inside an Albany courthouse as she was facing arraignment.

Following the incident on Tuesday, Clyanna Lightbourn, 34, was taken into custody by the Albany PD and charged with obstruction of governmental administration, tampering with physical evidence, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct, police reports revealed.

Lightbourn, in addition to three other activists, appeared in court for their scheduled arraignment, but, during the preceding, several BLM members in the audience began a planned disruption inside of the courtroom, according to the Washington Times.

In addition to the typical screeching and mindless chanting, the crazed activists released hundreds of cockroaches from Tupperware containers that were smuggled into the building, forcing the courtroom to close for the rest of the day in order to be fumigated.

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Protecting Yourself from Bullets is Now Illegal in NY as State Outlaws Body Armor

The state of New York, who has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, just stepped it up another notch — this time outlawing the ability of citizens to protect themselves from bullets with body armor. This move proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that lawmakers were never concerned with your safety — only control.

Legislation S.9407-B/A.10497 — written into law on Tuesday — makes it illegal to purchase and sell body vests for anyone who is not engaged in an eligible profession. “Eligible professions include law enforcement officers and other professions, which will be designated by the Department of State in consultation with other agencies,” according to the legislation.

“Gun violence is an epidemic that is tearing our country apart. Thoughts and prayers won’t fix this, but taking strong action will,” NY Gov. Kathy Hochul said as she took away the right of citizens to passively protect themselves. “In New York, we’re taking bold steps to protect the people of our state. I am proud to sign a comprehensive bill package that prohibits the sale of semiautomatic weapons to people under 21, bans body armor sales outside of people in select professions, closes critical gun law loopholes and strengthens our Red Flag Law to keep guns away from dangerous people—new measures that I believe will save lives.”

Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado weighed in after Hochul and completely dismantled their own argument that this law will do anything — by acknowledging that the pervasiveness of “illegal” firearms is leading to an increase in violent crime — not legal guns in the hands of law abiding citizens.

“There is a scourge of gun violence in our country due to the pervasiveness of illegal firearms. Year after year, our neighborhoods are flooded with illegal guns and ghost guns, tormenting families and law-abiding citizens every day, but yet the national response does not change,” Delgado said.

In other words, “illegal guns in the hands of criminals are killing people, so we need to disarm law abiding citizens.” Makes sense…

According to the body armor ban legislation, it also vaguely outlaws the possession of body vests; meaning those who currently possess it, could potentially be penalized.

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