Tag: new york

Why Zohran Mamdani’s ‘Sewer Socialism’ Won’t Help Poor People

New York City is poised to elect a Jew-hating, jihadi-loving, police-defunding socialist for mayor. But New York Times contributor E.J. Dionne thinks that this is fine, because Zohran Mamdani wants to be a “sewer socialist.” Which is to say that “he is far more interested in the practical task of being a successful mayor than in the impossible dream of turning a single city into a socialist paradise.“

Dionne is the sort of self-described Catholic Democrat who prefers the party platform to the catechism of his church, and so he is a willing mark for Mamdani’s efforts to reassure voters that he isn’t a dangerous radical. Per Dionne, Mamdani understands that the best advertisement for socialism is success, and he therefore seeks to revive a tradition of socialist mayors who eagerly worked on “the grubbiest of urban amenities because doing so underscored their aim of running corruption-free governments that did whatever they could to improve the lives of working-class people.” 

That sounds nice. It would be good for the Big Apple if Mamdani delivered on this ideal. Indeed, if the Democrats who run our nation’s cities focused on good government, it would be good for their constituents, their party’s political fortunes, and the nation as a whole, which is harmed when Leftists such as Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson run our cities into the ground. But an outbreak of good government via urban socialism is not going to happen, no matter how much credulous liberals such as Dionne want to believe.

The first barrier is ideological. Socialism has changed since the early 20th century days that Dionne pines for. It is not about taking from the haves to give to the have-nots anymore (if it ever was). Rather, today’s socialism is an amalgamation of woke ideology, from intersectionality to anti-colonialism. Its advocates don’t care about sewers in working-class neighborhoods nearly as much as they do about climate change and letting sex offenders into the girls’ locker room. Today’s Left will enthusiastically take food from poor kids to pressure schools into implementing the rainbow agenda.

The result is an incoherent agenda that will hurt those whom Mamdani claims to want to help. For example, because socialism views excellence with suspicion, he wants to eliminate gifted programs for young public-school students. This will do nothing to advance the interests of the working class; it will only sabotage the chances of bright kids whose parents cannot afford private school tuition. Likewise, his antipathy toward law enforcement will undermine his signature initiatives, such as free busses. It is not just that “free” busses will, by his own estimate, cost taxpayers billions, but that people will avoid them because the Left refuses to enforce the laws that keep public spaces safe.

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Mamdani Vows To Shut Down Rikers Island, Release Almost 8K Criminals

If New York City voters elect Muslim democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor, they will come to appreciate H.L. Mencken’s maxim that “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

The latest on the far-far-far left radical goes well beyond raising taxes on whites, providing free day care and bus transportation, and, famously, “seizing the means of production.”

Last night, during the final mayoral debate against independent candidate and former Governor Andrew Cuomo and radio talker and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, Mamdani vowed again to shut down the Rikers Island prison facility in 2027, as city law requires. The problem: Other jails cannot be built before the deadline.

Result: Almost 8,000 dangerous criminals would be loosed upon the city. Not that Mamdani would care. Aside from the other communist ideas he espouses, he would also abolish jails and prisons.

Rikers Island is a 413-acre property with 12 facilities, almost all the city’s jails. In 2019, the city passed a law to close the facility and replace it with jails in four of the city’s five boroughs. That was a pipe dream, and now, the deadline for shuttering Rikers looms.

Answering a debate moderator’s question about it, Cuomo said “you cannot close Rikers in 2027 because there’s no place to put the people unless you’re going to release 7,000 people.” Noting that Mamdani would release them, Cuomo added that “I’m not going to release 7,000 criminals into New York.”

Releasing the criminals is the Democratic Socialists’, and therefore Mamdani’s, policy, Cuomo said. The former Empire State governor would build new jails on the island.

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New York AG Urges Public to Send Footage of ICE Raids

New York State’s attorney general on Wednesday called on the public to send her office photos, videos, and other documentation of federal immigration operations for review, just a day after an enforcement operation targeted street vendors in Manhattan’s Chinatown turned to chaos as protestors confronted agents.

Attorney General Letitia James said her office would comb over footage and further documentation of federal immigration operations via a “Federal Action Reporting Form,” stating that “every New Yorker has the right to live without fear or intimidation.”

James has also requested that New Yorkers submit photos or videos of Tuesday’s enforcement operation in Chinatown to her office, so that her office can determine if any laws were broken.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said James’s call for videos and photos “looks like obstruction of justice.”

The immigration enforcement operation took place on New York City’s Canal Street, a well-known area with a reputation for street vendors selling imitation goods, sparking resistance from city residents, many of whom were seemingly on their way home from work.

Shortly after 4 p.m. on Tuesday, federal agents began the operation, with an Associated Press reporter saying they saw dozens of agents detain a street vendor.

Protestors encircled the officers and tried to prevent their vehicles from leaving while shouting “ICE out of New York” and calling on other pedestrians to join in the protest.

Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Border Patrol, and other federal agencies then attempted to disperse the crowd. The confrontation grew, and an unknown number of federal agents retreated on foot, which was cheered on by protestors and honking cars. Federal reinforcements with long guns and tactical gear then arrived on scene.

“During this law enforcement operation, rioters who were shouting obscenities became violent and obstructed law enforcement duties, including blocking vehicles and assaulting law enforcement,” McLaughlin said.

Altogether, federal authorities said 14 people—illegal immigrants and demonstrators—were arrested in Tuesday’s operation, including illegal immigrants from Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, and Guinea. Some had prior criminal arrest histories.

Four people were arrested for allegedly assaulting law enforcement, and another for obstruction of justice, according to DHS.

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NY lawmakers claim Hochul is targeting them for ongoing probe into alleged $11B Medicaid program scandal

State lawmakers are accusing Gov. Kathy Hochul of retaliating against them for continuing a probe into mounting claims her administration rigged the contract for a massive $11 billion Medicaid homecare program.

State Sens. Jim Skoufis (D-Orange) and Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx) plan to send a letter Tuesday demanding Hochul’s administration turn over evidence surrounding bid rigging and other allegations centering on her overhaul of the $11 billion per year Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program.

While the lawmakers were finalizing plans to move the investigation forward last week, Hochul took the unusual step of vetoing several of Skoufis’ bills, including one that would reimburse pharmacies for consulting patients on abortion procedures.

The Hudson Valley lawmaker, who shocked many with his full-throated attacks on Hochul during this year’s budget votes, accused the Democratic governor of vetoing his bills as payback for pushing the probe.

“The Governor wanted me to suppress critical information related to the CDPAP investigation, plain and simple. Kathy Hochul is barking up the wrong tree if she’s looking for a hack to shamelessly cover for her administration,” Skoufis said.

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Thousands of Orthodox Jews rally in New York to protest change in Israel’s military draft rules

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews packed the streets and sidewalks for blocks around the Israeli consulate in New York City on Sunday to protest issues including a potential end of an exemption for religious students from compulsory service in Israel’s military.

The protest at the consulate, a block from the United Nations campus in Manhattan, illustrated the complex relationship between Israel and segments of the large population of very religious Jews in New York and its suburbs.

The two influential, and often rival, grand rebbes of the Satmar community both called on adherents to participate in the demonstration. The Central Rabbinical Congress of the U.S.A. and Canada, a consortium of Orthodox Jewish groups, said it helped organize the protest.

It comes after Israel’s Supreme Court last year ordered the government to begin drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men into the military. There had been a longstanding enlistment exemption – dating to the founding of Israel in 1948.

The ultra-Orthodox worry that mandatory enlistment will impact adherents’ ties to their faith. But many Jewish Israelis have argued that an exemption is unfair. Rifts over the issue have deepened since the start of the war in Gaza.

Rabbi Moishe Indig, a Satmar community leader, said he’s not sure organizers expected so many people to show up but he said he felt urgency building around the issue.

He said he was appreciative of the governments in New York and the U.S. “for giving us the freedom and liberty to be able to live free and have our children go to school and study and learn the Torah.”

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How Letitia James’s Fake Marriage to Her Dad Sparked a Lifetime of Mortgage Fraud

How did Letitia James’s claim that she married her father in order to qualify for her first loan evolve into a lifetime of mortgage and bank fraud?

It all began in the spring of 1983, when a 24-year-old Letitia James and her father, Robert James, posing as “husband and wife,” took out a real-estate loan for $30,300 from Kadilac Funding Ltd. for the purchase of a two-story townhome in Queens. The loan document, signed by both, listed “ROBERT JAMES AND LETITIA JAMES, HIS WIFE” in three separate places. This was no clerical error.

At that time, young Letitia likely lacked sufficient income or credit to qualify for a mortgage as a single woman. The fraudulent claim of marriage to her father allowed her to obtain financing she otherwise couldn’t have, an act that meets the legal definition of mortgage fraud under state and federal statutes.

This deception set a precedent for her. Once Letitia discovered that falsifying personal information could deliver tangible financial rewards without consequence, the act of misrepresentation for loans became a lifelong habit.

Decades of mortgage misrepresentations followed. Even after she became the high-profile Attorney General of New York state on January 1, 2019, James continued the same behavior pattern.

In 2020, James purchased a property at 3121 Perone Avenue in Norfolk, Virginia, signing a document claiming it would be her primary or secondary residence, rather than a rental property, to secure a lower interest rate. That misrepresentation recently became part of the criminal indictment against her for mortgage and bank fraud, carrying a potential 30-year prison sentence.

In 2021, James applied for a $200,000 line of credit mortgage from Citizen’s Bank on her 5-unit apartment building in Brooklyn, but in mortgage documents James claimed it only had one apartment unit. Accordingly, James received a lower residential mortgage interest rate she was not entitled to, and avoided a higher commercial loan rate and much higher closing costs.

In 2023, James bought a home at 604 Sterling Avenue in Norfolk, Virginia. Per Sam Antar, Letitia qualified for the loan only after certifying in an updated application that it would be her “primary residence”, even though she lived in Brooklyn.

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NYC teen shooters, victims skyrocket since passing of Raise the Age law: new data

The number of teen gunshot victims and teen shooters has exploded since the state’s controversial Raise the Age Law went into effect in 2018, according to new data obtained by The Post.

As of last week, 92 people under 18 have been shot so far this year –  96% more than the 47 shot in the same period in 2018, the year before the legislation enacted by leftist state pols fully took effect, raising the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18.

The 92 teen shooting victims this year is 21% more than the 76 shot at this point last year, according to NYPD data through Sept. 28.

The number of teen shooters has surged even higher — climbing 143% — with 73 arrested so far this year, compared to 30 in the same span in 2018, and 3% more than the 71 busted in the same period last year, the data show.

Even more troubling is that the shocking surge in teenage gunplay comes as shootings in NYC have dropped 20% overall so far this year compared to 2024, NYPD data shows.

Shooting incidents overall have fallen by more than 50% since 2020, the data show.

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Zohran Mamdani Campaigns with Imam Tied to 1993 World Trade Center Bombing

One day after the New York City mayoral debate, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani openly campaigned at a mosque alongside Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Instead of distancing himself, Mamdani proudly highlighted the event.

He even posted about it publicly, as if daring New Yorkers to overlook the danger.

For years, warnings about Mamdani’s ties to Wahhaj have circulated. Wahhaj was named by federal prosecutors as a co-conspirator in the terror plot that killed six and injured more than a thousand.

Despite this, he continues to serve as an imam in New York and has donated to Mamdani’s campaign.

He remains an influential figure in the same activist networks that have normalized radicalism under the banner of “progress.”

The connections don’t stop there. Linda Sarsour, the anti-Israel activist who has publicly defended Hamas sympathizers, calls Wahhaj her mentor.

His son, Siraj Wahhaj Jr., operated a jihadi compound in New Mexico where children were indoctrinated and trained to commit terrorist attacks.

Federal authorities reported that the group stockpiled weapons, plotted mass murder, and buried the remains of children on the site.

Members of the compound received life sentences.

These are the people surrounding Mamdani. These are the networks trying to seize political power in New York City.

Instead of distancing himself, Mamdani embraces them.

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Letitia James’ criminal kin have been charged 11 times in 5 years — but keep getting off easy

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ troubled grandnieces have been charged with a combined eight felonies and three misdemeanors in the past five years — but had their charges downgraded or dropped every time.

The women live in James’ Norfolk, Va., homes, which have been the subject of intense federal scrutiny in recent months over mortgage documents James signed — including a federal criminal indictment that has New York’s top law enforcer facing 60 years in federal prison.

Cayla Thompson-Hairston, 21, an OnlyFans model with an X-rated social media presence, was hit with felony charges in April 2024 for allegedly lying about having a felony criminal record when she tried to buy a gun in Suffolk, Va., according to court documents.

Cops said she was barred from owning a handgun due to a juvenile felony charge of malicious wounding in August 2020.

However, the weapons charges were later dropped entirely.

Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi, a Democrat, said prosecutors later learned the juvenile charges were pleaded down to a misdemeanor.

Suffolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Narendra Pleas, also a Democrat, did not respond to The Post’s request for clarification on why she dropped the charges.

One legal observer said it was concerning that the charges were dropped entirely — particularly in light of Thompson-Hairston’s violent criminal history.

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NYC Wikipedia conference halted when ‘non-offending pedophile’ storms stage, points gun at own head

A Wikipedia conference in Manhattan descended into chaos Friday morning when an unhinged Ohio man jumped on stage and pointed a gun at his own head.

Connor Weston, 27, allegedly clutched the loaded revolver as he declared, “I’m a non-contact pedophile. I want to kill myself” — prompting WikiConference staff to quickly tackle and disarm him before cops took him into custody, sources said.

“It was just adrenaline,” said one of the staffers who stopped the gunman.  “Since you’re on the trust and safety team you’re expected to do this . . . we’re not used to loaded weapons in the same room . . . we’re used to more prank behavior.” 

Weston — who wore a multicolored banner draped over his shoulders and a sign around his neck with the words “ANTI-CONTACT NON-OFFENDING PEDOPHILE” — was detained at the conference, which was hosted at Union Square’s Civic Hall on East 14th Street near Irving Place, sources said. 

“I think we handled it pretty well considering this was not an expected thing,” the worker who helped stop the incident added. “We’re expected to do that for every event but in a place like NYC you’re going to have more people and more chance of it.”

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