Tag: new york

Alvin Bragg’s Prison Reform Poster Boy (And Joe Rogan Guest) Charged With Murder

Sheldon Johnson, a “criminal justice activist,” is being held on murder charges following a gruesome discovery in a Bronx apartment: a dismembered body. The body, it is alleged, is that of a former prison rival.

Johnson, 48, worked at Queens Defenders (@QueensDefenders), a public legal defense firm.

Johnson became something of a cause célèbre in the past year. He was released early from prison, having served 25 years of a 50 year sentence. His release was the work of activist D.A. Alvin Bragg, who has sought to decriminalize and forgive scores of prisoners. We continue to see the fruit of his labors.

After he was spotted by a neighbor of the deceased, Johnson was monitored by building superintendent Orlando Medina on CCTV. Johnson left and returned to the apartment complex several times, once in a blond wig. The police were summoned. According to the NY Times, what they eventually discovered was gruesome.

Once the detectives obtained a warrant to search the apartment, they discovered the victim’s torso and feet inside the bin, the reports said. They also found his legs, arms and head in the freezer. Mr. Small had been shot at least once in the head.

—NYT

Wrote To Alvin Bragg From Prison

Johnson wrote to D.A. Bragg from prison, using the website PrisonWriters.com, a nonprofit organization that seeks so open channels of dialogue between prisoners and lawmakers. His letter is full of verbal flourishes, woke jargon, and fifty-cent words. The full body of the letter can be found here.

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Gov. Hochul deploys 1,000 National Guardsmen, state cops to carry out bag checks in NYC subways

Hundreds of National Guard troops began flooding city subways Wednesday as part of a crime-fighting plan suddenly unveiled by Gov. Kathy Hochul following a series of attacks underground.

The governor defended the major show of force — not seen since the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks — as an “even better” way to help New York City “solve this crisis.”

“These brazen heinous attacks on our subway system will not be tolerated,” Hochul declared from the MTA’s Transit Rail Control Center in Midtown, pointing to last week’s random slashing of a train conductor and other recent acts of violence.

In total, 750 National Guardsmen and 250 state and MTA cops will help the NYPD patrol “the city’s busiest transit stations” and check commuters’ bags, Hochul said – adding the initiative came after meetings with Mayor Eric Adams, MTA officials and the NYPD last week.

The announcement of her “five point plan” to combat transit crime came the day after Adams — who was noticeably absent from the gov’s press conference — had already revealed the NYPD would be enhancing bag checks and stepping up its presence in the system.

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NYPD is to bring back stop and search at subway stops says liberal Mayor Eric Adams in a bid to halt rampant violence – more than a decade after it was deemed ‘unconstitutional’

New York City Democrat Mayor Eric Adams says he is bringing back bag checks for subway riders after a 13 percent crime spike – over a decade after the city’s similar ‘stop-and-frisk’ policy was deemed unconstitutional.

Recent criminal activity on the trains making headlines include a cellist who was bludgeoned over the head by a stranger wielding a water bottle as he performed, as well as a shooting that killed one and injured five others.

‘We know people feel unsafe,’ Adams, himself a former transit police officer, admitted during a press briefing. 

The mayor said he will be bringing back methods that have been previously used in times of great suspicion.  

‘We are reinstituting bag checks. There are several things we are reinstituting in the system,’ Adams added, with the NYPD reportedly searching bags for weapons such as knives, box cutters, clubs and guns. 

There will be 94 bag screening teams sent to 136 stations each week, though the exact locations will be determined. The city is also reviewing technology to detect metal objects entering the transit system. 

Screening teams will be able to check bags of any passenger for weapons under the policy that has long been dormant. 

Those subway back-check protocols were originally brought to the MTA after the London bombings in 2005. 

However, it may bring back memories of the city’s ‘stop-and-frisk’ policy, which was ended in 2014 after being deemed ‘unconstitutional.’ 

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New York City’s non-citizen voting law struck down as unconstitutional

A New York City initiative that would have allowed the city’s approximately 800,000 legal non-citizens the right to vote in local elections was struck down by a state appeals court as unconstitutional.

The proposal, passed as a city law in 2022, would have allowed green card holders and non-citizens living in New York City with federal work authorizations the right to vote in local elections for mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president and members of the New York City Council. This would have created some 800,000 new eligible voters in the city of 8.5 million.

The law was championed by progressive Democrats in the city who claimed that the “Our City, Our Vote” bill would make politics more representative and turn New York City into a more inclusive place for immigrants. Opponents of the bill warned that it would turn into a logistical nightmare leading to voter fraud and that Democrats only wanted to grant legal non-citizens voting rights to shore up their support. (Related: America’s 2024 election may be decided by 23 million ILLEGAL ALIENS.)

The bill was easily passed by the city’s Democratic supermajority in December 2021, but Republicans immediately sued as soon as the bill became law in January 2022. A lower court judge on conservative-leaning Staten Island struck it down months later.

The administration of Mayor Eric Adams has also come to the law’s defense and appealed the lower court’s ruling against it.

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New York Governor Kathy Hochul Now Pushing to Allow Illegal Immigrants to Take Government Jobs

New York Governor Kathy Hochul now wants to allow illegal border crossers to take state jobs. For weeks, she has been pushing to fast track work programs for illegals and now she wants them working in government jobs.

Does this mean that illegals would get the cushy benefits that come with such jobs? Will they be eligible for pensions? Will they join public sector unions and join strikes demanding more money? Does anyone in New York see the brutal irony in this?

Where does this madness end?

Townhall reported:

Kathy Hochul Has the Green Light to Give State Jobs to Illegal Migrants

In President Joe Biden’s America, illegal migrants get a five-star treatment while law-abiding U.S. citizens take a back seat.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) is trying to fast-track her plans of getting illegal aliens at the front of the line for government jobs.

New York would be the first state in the nation to make it easier for asylum-seekers with work authorization to obtain government jobs. Hochul told Politico that she is “anxious to get this moving quickly.”

The Democrat’s administration is easing requirements for such jobs as, English language proficiency, education qualifications, and certification for more than 4,000 state government jobs. The long-standing requirement of needing to take the civil service exam and have a high school diploma for applicants to be considered has also been eliminated.

The goal of the proposal is to get illegal aliens into state jobs faster once they get approved work permits.

This is insane and an insult to American citizens.

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Top Adams aide suffered ‘medical episode,’ rushed to hospital as feds raided home over donor probe

Top Mayor Eric Adams aide Winnie Greco is being investigated by the feds for potentially using workers at a Queens mall to hide campaign donations to Hizzoner, law-enforcement sources told The Post on Friday.

The FBI launched raids Thursday on two homes Greco owns on Gillespie Avenue in Pelham Bay in The Bronx  — as well as the offices of the New World Mall in Flushing — over the alleged possible illegal straw donor scheme, sources said.

The 61-year-old longtime mayoral adviser suffered a “medical episode” during the morning raids —  which included federal agents hauling off boxes of files from at least one of the homes — and was taken by ambulance to the hospital, City Hall sources told The Post. The administration did not immediately comment on her condition Friday.

The city Department of Investigation opened a probe in November after allegations surfaced of suspected straw-donor money stemming from events organized by Greco, a major Adams campaign-raiser and now his $100,000-a-year Asian Affairs liaison, the outlet The City reported.

Greco was heavily involved in organizing eight lucrative fundraising events at New World Mall for Adams’ 2021 campaign, the outlet said.

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New York Governor Pushes Big Tech To ‘Step Up’ By Removing Illicit Marijuana Shop Listings

New York’s governor is calling on big tech companies such as Google and Meta to “do the right thing” by taking steps to stop promoting illicit marijuana shops that have proliferated across the state.

During a press briefing on Wednesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said that social media and search engine companies are passively undermining the legal market that’s being implemented by allowing unlicensed retailers to be featured on their services, giving consumers the false impression that they are legitimate businesses.

‘They’re hurting our legal shops, and we’ve been in touch with these companies, these platforms, and we’ve told them flat out, ‘You need to change this,’” she said.

Hochul added that she doesn’t expect the tech companies to proactively identify and remove illicit shop listings on their own because “they would tell us that they’re not required to.” To that end, she said her message to the businesses is, “let us help you.”

“Let us give you the list of legal vendors. I know who’s legal. We all know who’s legal. And then you have a responsibility to make sure that you’re not posting the locations of illegal shops,” the governor said. “Now I’m calling on all these platforms to step up, do the right thing and be part of the solution. Don’t be complicit in helping jeopardize the public health and the livelihoods of these legitimate business owners.”

At Wednesday’s briefing, Hochul was joined by cannabis stakeholders and advocates, including representatives of organizations that published an open letter to the governor on Tuesday that raised the alarm about social media companies promoting unlicensed retailers.

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NYC School Gives Kindergarteners ‘Communist’ BLM Colouring Book

An elementary school in New York has been heavily criticised after it distributed a Black Lives Matter colouring book containing communist revolutionary terms to children as young as five.

The school, called PS 321, and also known as William Penn, is reported to have given the book titled “What We Believe: A Black Lives Matter Principles Activity Book” to children from Kindergarten through to fifth grade.

The Free Press reports that the pupils were supplied the materials as part of lessons on Black History Month.

The book is centred around thirteen so called tenets of the Black Lives Matter movement, including “Restorative Justice.”

Principle number 2, “Empathy,” is described as “engaging comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.”

The report notes that parents of a child in the fourth grade were appalled when they read the book and noted that it used the word ‘comrades’.

The language was particularly shocking to them given that the child’s grandparents had fled Communist China to live free in America.

“They are using words that I don’t think are appropriate for elementary school,” the parent noted, urging that “the word comrades comes from Communist times.”

Another parent whose family fled the Soviet Union noted that the book reminded her “of the songs we were made to sing as elementary school children.”

“‘Dismantling’ and ‘comrade’ and everything—it really reminds me of the word salad that was a part of those songs… same salad, different dressing,” she added.

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Inside Mayor Adams’ migrant debit card boondoggle — no-bid bank gets $50 million, border crossers up to $10,000 each

It takes money to make money, as the old saying goes, and apparently, it also takes money — as much as $53 million — to give money away.

Earlier this month, The Post broke the story that Mayor Eric Adams is giving out pre-paid cash cards to migrants.

Unusually for the mayor, Adams didn’t publicize this story himself, and his administration for nearly a month has failed to correct several public misperceptions about it.

One misperception is that the program allows the city to give out just $50 million to migrants.

No wonder the mayor has been reticent.

This debit card program — if you read the actual contract — has the potential to become an open-ended, multibillion-dollar Bermuda Triangle of disappearing, untraceable cash, used for any purpose.

It will give migrants up to $10,000 each in taxpayer money with no ID check, no restrictions and no fraud control.

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Hochul Says Israel Should Have Annihilated Gaza, Offers Bizarre Scenario of Canada Attacking Buffalo

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is not famous for her foreign policy expertise, told a Jewish group last week that Israel should have annihilated Gaza and compared it to a hypothetical scenario where Buffalo was attacked by Canada.

“If Canada someday ever attacked Buffalo, I’m sorry, my friends; there would be no Canada the next day,” the democrat told the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York on Thursday, according to CBS News.

Hochul, who has been a major backer of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, later apologized.

Hochul’s position is not unusual in the U.S. and in Israel, where most Israelis don’t think enough is being done to punish Palestinians.

Amichai Eliyahu, Israel’s Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage minister, stood by his comment that his country should strike the Gaza Strip with a “nuclear bomb” because there are no innocent civilians in the coastal enclave.

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