Lawlessness Affects Us All

On Saturday, Breitbart posted the following headline:

‘We’re Just Waiting for Another 9/11’: Migrants Buy Fake Green Cards, Social Security ID from NYC Gangs

The article reports:

Black market fake green cards and social security identification are being openly hawked to illegal migrants on the streets of New York City, a report revealed.

Criminals linked to MS-13 and other gangs have been spotted selling the fabricated documents this week in Queens, the New York Post reported.

At least ten men were selling the bogus cards for $80 to $250 while “camped out in broad daylight at four corners along Roosevelt Avenue in Queens,” according to the outlet.

Roy Fenoff, an associate professor at the Department of Criminal Justice at the Citadel, South Carolina, said the documents grant migrants access to almost everything a citizen has.

“Once people have these fake cards, they can work, they can travel, they can access a lot of aspects and services in the United States,” he said. “There are people getting these cards that are not here just to get a job, that they have other intentions, and this helps them carry out criminal activity.”

I wonder how many of the fake id card purchasers will vote in November. How many of them will be paid to vote? How many of them will link up with groups with nefarious purposes?

The article concludes:

Illegal aliens can even skirt past criminal charges by giving fake identities to law enforcement.

“If they’ve never been fingerprinted before, under their fake name they can get arrested five, six, seven, eight times… and they themselves would never have a record,” said John Cutter, retired NYPD deputy chief of the Intelligence Division.

“With fake IDs, they become [a] ghost, so they become more emboldened and more willing to break the law and potentially do something that’s really serious,” he added.

The brother of Jose Antonio Ibarra, the illegal migrant who allegedly killed 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley, has been charged with allegedly possessing a fake green card, which he used to get a job at the University of Georgia.

Diego Ibarra, 29, was taken into custody by the Clarke County Sheriff’s Office after being fired from his dishwasher job at one of the school’s dining halls upon refusing to provide additional identifying documents, Breitbart News reported.

Diego has “been linked to a brutal Venezuelan gang,” according to the New York Post.

How many Venezuelan gang members does it take to plan a terrorist attack or terrorize a small town? I am hoping we don’t find out.

“Get Off My Lawn,” He Shouted

Last night I watched the State of the Union Address. I watched the entire speech and the rebuttal. I learned that to our ‘representatives’ and the elites in Washington, the most most important issues are Ukraine and January 6th. In the rebuttal, I learned that the four things important to Republicans are our southern borde5r, conflicts overseas, inflation, and crime–not necessarily in that order. When the State of the Union Address was over, I felt like someone had yelled at me for an hour and a half. The speech proved that President Biden does have the energy to give an hour and a half speech. It also left many Americans wondering if there were drugs involved.

In his speech, the President needed to allay doubts about his cognitive abilities. He also needed a reset from his image as a tired old man. He did a reasonable job on both counts as long as you ignored the yelling and the slurred speech near the end of the address.

There were a number of lies told during the speech. January 6th was not an insurrection–there were no guns involved and no one has been convicted of insurrection. The President did not inherit a struggling economy–he inherited low inflation, low interest rates, energy independence, and an economy on the rebound from the Covid lockdowns. A large number of the jobs he claims to have created were simply people returning to the jobs they held before the Covid lockdowns. I would also like to note that many of the jobs currently being created are part-time jobs. During the past two months, the number of full-time jobs has significantly decreased. The President also claimed that crime is down under his administration. That is simply not true, although much of the increase in crime is due to Democrat-run cities who have eliminated bail and are not keeping criminals in jail. In New York, the National Guard has been called up to patrol the New York City subways because crime has become a serious problem there.

Also, why was there a fence around the Capitol, but not a wall at our southern border? Do fences and walls work or do they not work? There was also a comment about increasing taxes on corporation and on the wealthy. Corporations do not pay taxes–they pass them on to their customers, fueling inflation. “Taxing the rich” is a proposal that simply feeds class envy. If you want to see the results, look at the Laffer Curve. I would also like to note that during the Obama administration, General Electric paid no income taxes. Why weren’t they sharing the burden?

The speech was loud, inaccurate, and divisive. The tone was not attractive. I do wonder if this speech, which seemed more like a campaign speech than a State of the Union Address, actually won over any undecided voters.

Where Can We Sign Up?

On Monday, The New York Post reported that New York City Mayor Eric Adams is giving out pre-paid cash cards to illegal immigrants. Maybe I am missing something, but it seems to me that if you want to discourage people from coming to your city, you don’t hand them $10,000 without any kind of an identification check. The possibilities for fraud are endless. Also, what impact does putting $50 million into the New York City economy have on inflation. Didn’t we learn a lesson about that from the Covid stimulus payments?

The article reports:

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.

The article also points out that the company overseeing this program is Newark-based Mobility Capital Finance, which also has an office in Harlem. The article explains some of the background of the company and some interesting aspects of the program.

The article notes”

Yes, the city can ask MoCaFi to activate or deactivate certain merchant or spending codes.

But these restrictions are not built into the contract; they are at the city’s changing discretion.

The city can even enable cardholder “consumers” to withdraw cash from the cards at domestic and international ATMs. “ATM withdrawal amounts per day can be restricted as required by the city,” the contract reads. “Should ATM access be included as part of the program, card fees will be subject to the schedule provided.”

The article concludes:

As the mayor told radio host Gary Byrd earlier this month, “it’s important for us to speak directly to you to separate the facts from fiction … Fact from fiction is the migrant cards that we gave out to migrants to purchase food. Just some quick bullets that you need to know about these cards. They are not American Express gold cards, folks. This is a pilot project we’re doing with 500 migrants.”

The fiction is in what the mayor says.

The fact is in the contract documents.

The city has given itself the full contractual and technical authority, under a supposed “emergency,” to disburse billions of dollars in cash to unidentifiable people who otherwise are not eligible to access the American financial system, in untraceable global cash.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. I wish our veterans were treated this generously.

Reading Between The Lines

On Sunday, The Hill quoted a statement by New York Governor Kathy Hochul.

The article reports:

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) addressed New York business owners in a new interview and told them there was “nothing to worry about” after former President Trump was hit with a $355 million fine and a ban on conducting business in New York for three years.

Hochul joined John Catsimatidis on “The Cats Roundtable” on WABC 770 AM, where she was asked if other New York businesspeople should be worried that if “they can do that to the former president, they can do that to anybody.”

“I think that this is really an extraordinary, unusual circumstance that the law-abiding and rule-following New Yorkers who are business people have nothing to worry about, because they’re very different than Donald Trump and his behavior,” Hochul responded.

They are very different than Donald Trump because they are not Republicans who do not support globalism who are running for President and may win. If you honestly believe that President Trump’s real estate practices were significantly different than other New York City real estate businesses, I admire you naivete. If you honestly believe that President Trump would have been tried even if he were not the probable Republican nominee for President, you haven’t been paying attention. Before President Trump became a Republican and ran for President, he received awards from civil rights groups and New York City organizations thanking him for the role he played in rebuilding the city after the city almost went bankrupt. Obviously those currently in power have chosen to forget that. This is political. It has nothing to do with the law.

The radio host who commented that if “they can do that to the former president, they can do that to anybody” got it right.

 

A Legal Perspective

On Saturday, Attorney Jonathan Turley posted an article at The Hill about the recent New York verdict against President Trump.

The article notes that Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School. He is well qualified to evaluate the verdict.

The article reports:

In laying the foundation for his sweeping decision against former President Donald Trump, Judge Arthur Engoron observed that “this is a venial sin, not a mortal sin.” Yet, at $355 million, one would think that Engoron had found Trump to be the source of Original Sin.

The judgment against Trump (and his family and associates) was met with a level of unrestrained celebration by many in New York that bordered on the indecent. Attorney General Letitia James declared not only that Trump would be barred from doing business in New York for three years, but that the damages would come to roughly $460 million once interest was included. 

That makes the damages against Trump greater than the gross national product of some countries, including Micronesia. Yet the court admitted that not a single dollar was lost by the banks from these dealings. Indeed, witnesses testified that they wanted to do more business with Trump, who was described as a “whale” client with high yield business opportunities. 

The article concludes:

In “Bonfire of the Vanities,” Tom Wolfe wrote about Sherman McCoy, a successful businessman who had achieved the status of one of the “masters of the universe” in New York. In the prosecution of McCoy for a hit-and-run, Wolfe described a city and legal system devouring itself in the politics of class and race. The book details a businessman’s fall from a great height — a fall that delighted New Yorkers.

It is doubtful Trump will end up as the same solitary figure wearing worn-out clothes before the Bronx County Criminal Court clutching a binder of legal papers. But you do not have to feel sorry or even sympathetic for Trump to see this award as obscene. The appeal will test the New York legal system to see if other judges can do what Judge Engoron found so difficult: set aside their feelings about Trump.

New York is one of our oldest and most distinguished bars. It has long resisted those who sought to use the law to pursue political opponents and unpopular figures. It will now be tested to see if those values transcend even Trump.

If the verdict is not overturned on appeal, it will be interesting to see what its impact will be on the business climate of New York. I suspect that the businesses that President Trump runs in New York City and State bring in considerable tax revenue. New York may have just shot itself in the foot.

Let’s Leave The United Nations And Ask It To Leave New York City

Today, Fox News reported that Israel has shared information with the Biden administration on staffers for United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) who were involved in the October 7 attacks on Israel.

The article reports:

The dossier specifically alleges that 12 employees who worked with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) aided in different capacities. 

According to the dossier, seven UN staffers crossed into Israel on Oct. 7 while other were accused of “participating in a terror activity” or coordinating vehicle movements.

The document says two joined Hamas terrorists in raiding an Israeli kibbutz and directly participated in violence, another two staffers kidnapped an Israeli woman, holding her hostage in their personal home; and, another UN staffer doled out ammunition to the Hamas terrorists.

I have previously posted pictures of a Palestinian kindergarten class (article here) showing the students dressed in combat gear preparing to invade Israel and drive the Jews into the sea. Schools and camps in Gaza are funded by UNRWA. This is what they are teaching the children.

The article notes:

The dossier specifies the UN workers involved, providing their photos and a description of their roles at the agency. 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the individuals who were alleged to have been involved in the attack are no longer employed. 

“Of the 12 people implicated, nine were immediately identified and terminated by the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini; one is confirmed dead, and the identity of the two others is being clarified,” said Guterres.

Would they still be employed if the information had not been shared?

Your Tax Dollars At Work

On Monday, The New York Post posted the following headline:

Don’t believe the lies: The UN is paying illegals using US taxpayer cash

Why are we still supporting the UN? Can’t we kick them out of New York City and use the building for kitchy condos?

The article reports:

In 2021, early on in America’s historic border crisis, I wrote that the United Nations was abetting the problem by handing out debit cards and cash vouchers to aspiring illegal border crossers on their way north.

One outraged group of 21 border security-minded lawmakers pitched a bill that would require the United States, the UN’s largest donor, to turn off the taxpayer money spigot.

H.R. 6155 never caught fire, though, in no small part because “fact checks” from outlets such as the AFP claimed that the UN was doing no such thing.

Those fact checkers lied.

The UN’s just released the 2024 “Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela” (R4V for short), a planning and budget document for handing out $1.6 billion in 17 Latin America countries.

It confirms the UN, with the helping hands of 248 named non-governmental organizations, is indeed giving debit cards to illegal migrants — funded, in large part, by US taxpayers.

Despite the R4V plan title naming Venezuelans as recipients of this aid operation, the document’s fine print (footnote on page 14 and paragraph on page 43, for instance) says the largesse goes to “all nationalities” and “multiple other nationalities.”

We are sending foreign aid to these countries which is being misused and stolen by the tyrants who govern them, and then we are giving money to the people who flee those tyrants. Until the citizens of those countries are willing to stay in those countries and fight for freedom, nothing is going to change. America is the country it is because our Founding Fathers fought for it. Admittedly we are not currently going in the direction that they planned, but their system of government has generally held. It’s time to cut off the funding that is not going directly to the people in need. American money does not need to uphold tyrants or encourage people to break the law, either directly or through the UN.

Having The Courage To Tell The Truth

On Wednesday, The Conservative Review posted an article about the screening of a film called “Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre.” The screenings will be held in Los Angeles and New York City.

The article reports:

Hollywood superstar Gal Gadot will help host uncensored screenings of footage laying bare the atrocities that Hamas committed in its Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Screenings of the film, which has been titled “Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre,” will be held in Los Angeles and New York City, according to the Wrap. Hollywood celebrities, journalists, and other influential figures are being invited to attend the events.

The Israel Defense Forces are providing 47-minutes of footage for the private screenings. The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee are also helping organize the screenings.

The article notes:

But the backlash against her has been fierce. The Quds News Network, a Palestinian “news” organization with connections to Hamas and Islamic terrorism, posted about the screening on social media, generating more than 50 million views and a ton of reaction.

“When we say these are not harmless opinions or individuals or careers to support, we aren’t exaggerating. Gal Gadot is a former IDF soldier using her access in Hollywood to push propaganda for an ongoing genocide,” said UCLA professor Nour Joudah.

The current spin by the ‘Palestinians’ is that Israel is committing genocide by going into Gaza. Israel is attacking military targets. What was Hamas doing when it went into Israel on October 7?

This Really Isn’t A Surprise

Yesterday MSN posted the following headline:

New York abandons electric snow plows

The article explains the reasons why:

This winter, New York won’t be using electric snow plows. Failure of vehicle tests has caused the local snow removal company to revert to diesel-powered vehicles.

The New York Department of Sanitation had three years ago, requested several Mack electric trucks. Primarily intended to clean streets and remove garbage, one of these trucks had been fitted with a snow plow as part of an experiment. This decision was unsurprising since in the “Big Apple”, it’s standard practice to fit garbage trucks with plows.

The experiment was not successful. The plow, dragging across the road and the snow buildup in front of it, created substantial resistance. Moreover, the plow required almost constant movement, eliminating the option for loading pauses. Consequently, the electric vehicle’s power supply was insufficient for the demands of a New York winter, known for its heavy snowfall, as reported by the website.

…The report further detailed that after nearly two hours, the electric plow had to discontinue the route for recharging. While the truck was efficient for garbage collection, its performance significantly dipped when facing snow removal tasks.

I have a problem with one of the statements above. A New York winter does not have really heavy snowfall. The average yearly New York City snowfall is 40 inches (source here). The average yearly snowfall for Boston is 52.7 inches (source here). The average yearly snowfall for Concord, New Hampshire is 67.7 inches and for Mount Washington, New Hampshire 281.8 inches (source here). If electric snow plows are too wimpy for New York City, imagine how useless they would be in New England.

Dealing With Crime In New York City

Mayor Adams has released his plan to deal with crime in New York City. On Saturday, Hot Air posted an article about the plan.

The article reports:

New York, as with other Democrat-run cities, is experiencing a crime wave. Retail theft–shoplifting–has gone through the roof. Gangs of people go into stores and steal with impunity, leaving with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. It is both organized crime and disorganized. Thousands of people engage in the practice, with hundreds at least who do it as a living.

The article reports the plan:

The new crackdown includes giving first-time offenders intervention programs instead of prosecution, de-escalation training for retail employees, establishing neighborhood retail watch groups to share information about a theft in real-time with one another and the police, and installing kiosks in stores to connect would-be thieves with social service programs.

No, this isn’t the Babylon Bee.

The article concludes:

Kiosks offering social service programs. Neighborhood groups to watch the crime happen–nobody, after all, is authorized or encouraged to interfere. We all know what interfering with a crime will get the good samaritan: time in Riker’s.

De-escalation training? Now that is funny. Expect to wind up on YouTube being smeared as a White Supremacist for not allowing yourself to be victimized. Oh..you don’t have to imagine it. It happens, and the MSM and the Left work overtime to destroy you.

…It took 6 months to come up with this plan.

Six months.

What is the point? When the tough-on-crime ex-cop suggests that kiosks with social service information are the solution to an ongoing crime wave, there really isn’t a point in sticking around. Pick up and leave.

As long as actions don’t have negative consequences, they will continue.

The Food Police Are Coming

On Tuesday, Breitbart posted the following headline, “Nolte: NYC to Track Household Food Consumption to Fight Climate Change.”

The article reports:

“The Adams administration has announced a plan to begin tracking the carbon footprint created by household food consumption,” reports the Gothamist. This will aid the fascist mayor’s goal to “reduce their food-based emissions by 33%” by 2030.

Please note that the 33 percent goal is specifically related to “food”— the food the people of New York choose to consume.

Further note that if you live in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams will track your food consumption.

I should add that Climate Change is a hoax.

Who would have thought New York City would elect a mayor that made Big Gulp Bloomberg look like a raging libertarian?

The sad thing is that you know the slaves of New York will be A-OK with the government monitoring and manipulating what foods they eat and then shaming them over anything that tastes good:

Mayor Eric Adams announced the plan on Monday along with the Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice as part of the city’s ongoing pledge to reduce the impact of climate change. At the same event, the Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice published a new chart in the city’s annual greenhouse gas inventory that publicly tracks the carbon footprint created by household food consumption — primarily generated by meat and dairy products.

For Adams, who was once diagnosed with diabetes, the recognition that food choices affect climate change dovetails with his push for New Yorkers to eat more plant-based meals. During his tenure, the city’s public hospital system has made plant-centric foods its default offering for patients. Public schools last year added a second day of vegan offerings — although initial reviews were not great.

I am glad that Mayor Adams has his diabetes under control, but that does not give him the right to tell me what I can or cannot eat.

The article notes:

All of this over a hoax.

If Climate Change were real (it’s not), we would not be talking about reducing New York’s greenhouse emissions because the *** “experts” *** told us New York would be underwater eight years ago.

So, as you read above, New York school kids are already forced to eat two vegan meals a day—which is a perfect example of how you lose your rights if you’re dependent on the government.

Families not dependent on the government don’t have to eat two yucky, disgusting, unsatisfying vegan meals a day. Instead, if they wish, they can pack their kids a lunch with a big slab of healthy red meat stuffed between two Twinkies.

If Americans do not wake up soon to the dangers of government overreach at all levels, we will not recognize our country in three years.

A Very Unsurprising Statistic

On Wednesday, Breitbart reported the following totally unsurprising information:

Felony suspects released without bail thanks to New York’s bail reform law are more likely to be rearrested for more felonies, including violent crimes, than suspects who were given bail before the law went into effect.

A study by researchers at John Jay College of Criminal Justice reviewed cases prior to the New York law taking effect and cases after the law was implemented where most suspects arrested for crimes are not required to pay any bail to be released from jail.

Overall, the study found that 47 percent of New York City suspects previously charged with felonies were rearrested for crimes — including more than 31 percent of whom were rearrested for felonies, more than 17 percent rearrested for violent crimes, and almost four percent rearrested for firearm charges.

…Of the more than 1,000 violent crime suspects reviewed by researchers, more than 72 percent were rearrested compared to fewer than 62 percent who were rearrested before the bail reform law.

Similarly, these violent crime suspects were rearrested for felonies at a more than 50 percent rate after being released without bail and rearrested for violent crimes at an almost 36 percent rate. Compare that to before the law when these suspects were rearrested for felonies at a 38 percent rate and a 24 percent rate for violent crimes.

The research on New York’s bail reform law echoes research in other states and cities that have nearly identical bail policies.

In Yolo County, California, for instance, 70 percent of suspects released without bail went on to be rearrested for additional crimes. Many of those suspects were rearrested for violent crimes like homicide, rape, kidnapping, robbery, carjacking, attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, and domestic violence.

Who would have thought that letting criminals out of jail results in more crime?

The Cost Of Being A Liberal Mayor

Open borders are expensive in many ways. A number of mayors of sanctuary cities have been forced to put their money where their mouth is, and it hasn’t been pretty. One recent example is Mayor Eric Adams in New York City.

On Wednesday, Front Page Magazine reported the following:

Want to know why Mayor Eric Adams is panicking? The numbers are ugly. New York City has no shortage of social problems, but Biden’s open borders crisis is really taking a bite out of the Big Apple.

Each illegal migrant costs NYC, over $10,000 a month.

New York City on average spends about $363 a day on each asylum seeker household receiving services in city shelters and emergency relief centers and is on track to spend a total of $1.4 billion by the end of the fiscal year in June, Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol said during a recent City Council hearing.

The cost for the “asylum seeker crisis” could double to $2.8 billion in the next fiscal year, Iscol told the panel during a hearing last week. He said the city cannot maintain that support.

That could be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2% of the city’s budget, but it piles on top of innumerable social problems that are already draining a city whose tax base is fleeing.

More than 30,000 newly arrived migrants are staying in city-run facilities. If those numbers continue to worsen, they’ll eat up even more of the budget.

I wonder what feedback the Biden administration is getting from the mayors whose cities are suffering because of illegal immigration. The negative impact of allowing children into the schools who have not been properly vaccinated for measles, chickenpox, etc., is being felt by all of the residents. The Democrats want voters and the Country Club Republicans want cheap labor, but meanwhile both groups are hurting average Americans and their children.

Green Technology vs. Cold Weather

On Sunday, Pamela Geller posted an article at The Geller Report about the problem New York City is having plowing the snow from the recent snowstorm. Traditionally, garbage trucks with snow plows are used for snow removal in New York City.

The article reports:

Don’t count on seeing electric garbage trucks plowing snow from city streets any time soon.

The city Department of Sanitation’s goals to become carbon neutral are clashing with the limits of electric-powered vehicles.

The department aims to switch all 6,000 vehicles in its fleet from gas to electric as part of the state’s goal to reduce emissions by 2040. But city officials say they haven’t found electric garbage trucks that are powerful enough to plow snow.

The department has ordered seven electric rear loader garbage trucks, custom-made by Mack and costing more than $523,000 each, with delivery slated for the spring. Used for curbside trash collection, the department’s current rear loader truck fleet runs on diesel and is outfitted with plows to clear streets during snow season.

But officials say previous electric trucks tested by sanitation have not lasted longer than four hours plowing snow before running out of power, and the new electric trucks will be used for trash collection but not plowing snow.

The technology used in electric cars needs to be modified to deal with cold weather. Tesla does have a heater that can be installed in their cars to increase their range in cold weather. However, not everyone can afford either the Tesla or the heater. At some point in the future, electric cars may be a viable option to the internal combustion engine, but that time is not now.

 

How To Improve Election Integrity

On December 30, Tom Fitton posted the Judicial Watch Weekly Update.

The Update reports some good news about election integrity:

New York City Removes 441,083 Ineligible Names from Voter Rolls Thanks to Judicial Watch!

We just settled a federal election integrity lawsuit against New York City after the city removed 441,083 ineligible names from the voter rolls and promised to take reasonable steps to clean its voter registration lists in the future.

We filed the lawsuit in July after the city failed to clean voter rolls for years. The lawsuit, filed under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), pointed out that New York City removed only 22 names under federal law over six years (Judicial Watch v Valentine et al. (No.1:22-cv-03952)).

Our suit detailed how New York City’s “own recent data concedes that there were only 22 total” removals under this provision “during a six-year period, in a city of over 5.5 million voters. These are ludicrously small numbers of removals given the sizable populations of these counties.”

Moreover, the “almost complete failure of Kings, Queens, New York, Bronx, and Richmond Counties, over a period of at least six years, to remove voters” under a key provision of federal law “means that there are untold numbers of New York City registrations for voters who are ineligible to vote at their listed address because they have changed residence or are otherwise ineligible to vote.”

The settlement details how the city responded to our notice about its voting roll deficiencies with a massive clean-up:

[The Board of Elections] notified Judicial Watch that, in February 2022, they removed, pursuant to Section 8(d)(1)(B) of the NVRA, 82,802 registrations in Bronx County, 128,093 in Kings County, 145,891 in New York County, 66,010 in Queens County, and 18,287 in Richmond County, for a total of 441,083 registrations.

[The Board of Elections] notified Judicial Watch that going forward they intend to cancel registrations pursuant to Section 8(d)(1(B) in each odd-numbered year in the months following a federal election.

Specifically, the city also agrees to track in detail and report its voter roll maintenance efforts through 2025:

For both 2023 and 2025 … the [Board of Elections] will notify Judicial Watch … on or before March 31, by means of separate excel spreadsheets for Bronx County, Kings County, New York County, Queens County, and Richmond County, of the number of removals, including removals pursuant to … the NVRA, made during the previous two years.

The NVRA requires states to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove” from the rolls “the names of ineligible voters” who have died or changed residence. Among other things, the law requires registrations to be cancelled when voters fail to respond to address confirmation notices and then fail to vote in the next two general federal elections. In 2018, the Supreme Court confirmed that such removals are mandatory (Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Inst. (138 S. Ct. 1833, 1841-42 (2018)).

This historic settlement is a major victory for New York voters who will benefit from cleaner voter rolls and more honest elections. We are pleased that New York City officials quickly acted to remove 441,000 outdated registrations from the rolls. We look forward to working together under this federal lawsuit settlement to ensure New York City maintains cleaner rolls for future elections.

We are a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As part of our work, we assembled a team of highly experienced voting rights attorneys who stopped discriminatory elections in Hawaii, and cleaned up voter rolls in California, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, among other achievements.

Please follow the link above to read the entire post. There is some good news here about the future of America’s elections.

Which Police Are Operating In America?

If you are an American living overseas, you don’t expect to be monitored by American police where you live. Unfortunately, that is not the expectation of Chinese citizens living in countries other than China.

On Saturday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a Chinese police station in New York City.

The article reports:

The U.S. government must immediately investigate and shutter the recently discovered overseas Chinese government police station in New York City for potential violation of U.S. laws, several experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In 2022, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established secret police stations in over 100 cities around the world to conduct intimidation and harassment operations against overseas Chinese, human rights organization Safeguard Defenders revealed in a September report. While other countries have announced probes into the alleged police stations, the location within American Changle Association — a Chinatown community organization in New York City — continues to operate outside legal boundaries and should be shut down, experts told the DCNF (Daily Caller News Foundation).

“This is a disgrace. How in God’s name could they openly have these communist police stations in our country?” Beau Dietl, a retired NYPD detective and current head of Beau Dietl & Associates private investigation firm, told the DCNF.

The article continues:

“There has been a noticeable uptick in incidents where the Chinese government is targeting people on other nations’ soil,” Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch of Idaho, who also serves on the Senate’s intelligence committee, told the DCNF. “This shows the Chinese Communist Party is not afraid to exert its will outside of China, and we should do all that we can to counter this behavior.”

China’s overseas police stations enable the CCP to illegally monitor and oppress dissidents across the globe, Conor Healy, director of government research at the video surveillance research organization IPVM, told the DCNF. “I have met many individuals who have fled China fearing for their lives, who go on to be harassed and threatened in Canada and in the U.S.,” said Healy, who provided testimony on China’s surveillance state during the 2021 Uyghur Tribunal proceedings.

Americans have an option, we can either defend freedom when it is threatened on or shore or we can simply ignore the threats. If we continue to ignore the threats, no one will be safe in America, Please follow the link above and read the entire article. The Chinese police station in America is not a unique event.

Is It Finally Over?

In a recent “60 Minutes” interview, President Biden declared that the Covid pandemic is over. Other powers-that-be in the administration quickly walked that statement back. What happens if the pandemic is over? Well, you can’t have a state of emergency for something that no longer exists. You can’t require masks and vaccines without the emergency declaration. You can’t shut down churches, schools, and businesses without an emergency declaration. Ending this emergency will end the need for more money being spent on Covid. Generally speaking, ending the emergency is not good news for those in Washington seeking to increase their power.

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller reported:

New York City will be ending its private sector vaccine mandate starting Nov. 1 as the city continues to lift pandemic-related restrictions.

Democratic Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday the mandate will end Nov. 1 for private employees but will remain in place for public employees, according to NBC 4 New York.

“Our vaccinated workforce kept the city open and operating, with over 300,000 employees it was crucial to put it in place and we’re keeping it in place,” Adams reportedly said. “Our vaccinated workers have carried out their jobs and stepped up when the city needed them the most and we think it’s imperative to send the right message and lead by example.”

Adams said the lifting of restrictions would provide businesses, as well as families, with more flexibility.

The article concludes:

The city will also be ending the vaccine requirement for schoolchildren to play in sports and other extracurricular activities, NBC 4 New York reported.

The announcement comes just after the New York City Department of Education recently fired more than 800 educators who were not in compliance with the city’s vaccine mandate.

I don’t want to read too much into this, but I suspect that the teachers who refused to get the vaccine might also be the teachers who objected to teaching Critical Race Theory. What a convenient way to make them go away.

It’s Different When It Happens In Your Own Backyard

Democrats in blue states have strongly supported President Biden’s lack of security on the southern border. They have frequently stated that America is a nation of immigrants while somehow neglecting to mention that the immigrants who built America came here legally to help build a nation–they were givers–not takers. Some mayors and governors have proudly claimed that their states or cities would be sanctuaries for illegal immigrants. Well, some of the chickens have recently come home to roost.

On Sunday, The New York Post reported the following:

Hundreds of migrants — at least some bussed to the Big Apple by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — lined up outside Lincoln Hospital in The Bronx on Sunday to get healthcare coverage, food and other items including school supplies and free phones.

The event, organized by the city hospital system, was billed as a “resource and family fun day” for the migrants and their children, many of whom have come to New York City in droves in recent weeks.

“I came to New York about three days ago. I am a welder, and I am looking for work here,” Venezuelan refugee Adrian Medina, 32, said through a translator.

I wonder how the unions who supported the Mayor feel about illegal immigrants willing to work jobs for less money.

The article concludes:

At least some of the migrants had been bussed to New York City by Texas’s Republican governor, who has raged about what he calls Dem President Joe Biden’s out-of-control lax border policies, while also targeting Democratic city mayors.

The migrants crossed the Mexico border into Texas illegally, then said they were seeking asylum, which allows them to legally stay in the US while their cases wind through the courts.

MetroPlusHealth said it was offering at least temporary healthcare coverage for the migrants at Sunday’s event.

The line to get into the event on the hospital’s Great Lawn stretched down the block.

Migrants were also provided library cards and back-to-school supplies for their kids.

City Hall estimates more than 4,000 migrants have arrived in the city in recent weeks.

The city Department of Homeless Services on Friday asked Big Apple hotels to help find 5,000 rooms to house newcomers — on top of a previous request of 600.

New York City is getting a taste of what Texas and Arizona have been dealing with since President Biden took office.

Common Sense From The Judiciary

On Tuesday, NewsMax reported that San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer struck down a law that allowed non-U.S. citizens to vote in school board elections in San Francisco.

The article reports:

The law permitting noncitizen parents of school-age children to vote in school board races was approved in 2016, took effect in 2018 and was extended indefinitely last year 

The law was challenged by California attorney James Lacy in March of this year, with numerous groups joining the lawsuit, including the California Public Policy Foundation and the U.S. Justice Foundation.

The plaintiffs argued: ”The State of California has a long-standing requirement that voters must be United States citizens. This requirement applies to every election in the state, even those conducted by charter cities, because determining voter qualifications is a matter of statewide concern where state law supersedes conflicting charter city ordinances.”

The suit also argued that since the San Francisco Unified School District receives money from state taxpayers, the whole state has an interest in its voters’ qualifications and that the board is elected in accordance with California law. In addition, it argued that the city does not have the authority to redefine who is eligible to vote, which would override the California Constitution.

In June, a New York City court struck down a law allowing noncitizens to vote in city elections (article here).

As more illegal aliens enter the country, there will be a move by Democrats to allow these non-citizens to vote. Hopefully the courts will continue to uphold voting rights for citizens. Are there any countries in the world today that allow non-citizens to vote in their elections?

When Reality Shows Up

One America News posted an article on Tuesday about what appears to be a change of attitude on the part of New York City Mayor Eric Adams. It seems that New York City is being overwhelmed by the surge of illegal immigrants looking to make a home in the city.

The article reports:

New York City Mayor Eric Adams sounded the alarm on the surge of illegal aliens coming to the Big Apple. During a press conference Sunday, Adams warned the city about the massive influx.

One of his campaign priorities was standing up for “undocumented New Yorkers” by making sure NYC remained a “sanctuary city.” He doubled down on that promise by informing residents that right now “this is an all hands on deck” moment.

Adams went on to say residents must all be on board after asking the administration for help last week while calling the migrants a “real burden on New Yorkers.” Border towns are familiar with NYC’s plight as more than 3 million migrants have surged into the country since Joe Biden took office.

Adams pleaded with the White House to provide aid to help accommodate the more than 2,800 people who recently entered the city’s shelter system. The Mayor was quick to blame migrants sent by Texas and Arizona, but also acknowledged federal migrant flights have contributed to the total sum. Adams listed a number of services for migrants he would like to be financed by federal tax dollars.

The problems New York City is encountering have been an everyday challenge for cities along America’s southern border since the Biden administration took office. These problems have been ignored by Democrat leaders in other parts of the country. Now that the illegal aliens are moving north, some Democrat leaders are beginning to notice the problem.

On July 17th, Fox News reported:

Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday to discuss the persistent homelessness problem plaguing her city.

Host Margaret Brennan brought up a Washington Post report that suggested homeless shelters are now being filled with illegal immigrants being bused in from Texas and Arizona.

Bowser admitted that it’s a “significant issue” and called on the federal government to get more involved as she fears illegal immigrants are being “tricked” into traveling to her city.

On April 6th, I quoted a report from The New York Post:

The White House has quietly resumed its after-dark charter flights of underage migrants to a suburban airport north of New York City — after a Post expose led to their suspension last year.

The Post watched as a group of migrant teens got off an Avelo Airlines plane that arrived at the Westchester County Airport near White Plains at 9:25 p.m. Thursday. The group then boarded three waiting buses that drove off about 50 minutes later.

The Democrats are all for illegal immigration until it comes to their city.

 

Politics Or Medicine?

On Friday, The Epoch Times reported that New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced that the vaccine passport system and school mask mandates will expire on March 7th. That is good news for New Yorkers. However, don’t get too comfortable–once a system of passports to enter restaurants and entertainment venues is set up for any reason, it can be resurrected for any other reason.

The article reports:

The mayor’s decision comes as a number of other Democrat-led cities, municipalities, and states have dropped COVID-19-related rules in recent weeks. They have cited a drop in the number of COVID-19 cases nationwide.

“This is about giving people the flexibility that is needed to continue allow not only safety, but we have to get our economy back on track,” Adams told reporters during an announcement at Times Square. “It’s time to open our city and get the economy back up and operating.”

New York City, under the de Blasio administration, became one of the first places in the United States last year to impose a vaccine passport system, impacting restaurants, gyms, sports venues, concerts, and similar businesses.

Critics say that the mandate created a two-tier society of vaccinated and unvaccinated people and also led to the unfair demonization of people who haven’t received the shot. A number of protests erupted across the city with thousands of demonstrators walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and other bridges in protest of the rules.

Starting in late 2021, New York City also has laid off thousands of workers, including police officers and firemen, who did not comply with the city’s vaccine mandate.

The mandates were probably illegal in the first place, and some have been struck down by the Supreme Court. However, I suspect the larger issue here is the approaching mid-term election. The Democrat party is associated with the mandates. States like Florida and North Dakota, run by Republicans, have abandoned mask and shutdown requirements very early in the epidemic and have fared as well or better than the states with strict lockdowns and mandates. States with Republican governors have recovered economically more quickly because they have loosed many of their Covid restrictions that were put in place nationally early in the pandemic. The elections are approaching, and even Democrat-run states are trying to recover their economies before November (even though President Biden’s economic and energy policies are going to make that very difficult).

Just remember, the freedom Americans gave up during the Coronavirus has not yet been won back. Mandates and shutdowns are still possible. What we need is a Supreme Court case that will make it clear that mandated masks and shutdowns are a violation of individual liberty and are thus unconstitutional.

A Definite Step In The Wrong Direction

New York City has a new mayor. It was hoped that Mayor Eric Adams would change the direction of the city–the city is not the safe, wonderful tourist attraction it has been in the past. Unfortunately, one of Mayor Adams’ first steps is in the wrong direction. The Western Journal posted an article on Sunday about a recent decision by Mayor Adams.

The article reports:

American citizenship is no longer required to vote in New York City’s local elections.

Mayor Eric Adams said Saturday he supports a plan to allow non-citizens to vote in Big Apple municipal contests, saying it was the “best choice,” according to the New York Post.

The bill was passed by the City Council last month and took effect Sunday because neither Adams nor former Mayor Bill DeBlasio vetoed it, according to The New York Times.

About 800,000 people who are not U.S. citizens can now vote for New York City mayor, council races, and local ballot propositions. Although the law is aimed at legal citizens, it also allows gives the vote to participants in the Deferred Action for Childhoods Arrivals program — who were brought to the U.S. illegally as young children.

At the moment, the law does not apply to state and local elections.

The article notes:

New York City’s board of elections must develop rules to implement the plan by July, with it taking effect in the 2023 round of local elections, the Guardian reported.

There is a lawsuit that has been filed. I believe this law is unconstitutional. Hopefully, the judges who hear the case will follow the constitution in making their decision.

What Has Happened To Our Constitution?

On Tuesday, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about a recent incident in New York City.

The article reports:

New York City was the first large metropolitan area to require vaccination identification cards to enter restaurants, bars, dining establishments and various public and private venues. Now comes the enforcement part.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) has started deploying vaccination police, and making arrests of people who do not present papers to prove their status.

The article includes the video below:

The article includes a warning for all of us:

Many police and law enforcement officers will tell you they will not comply with such orders. However, when those orders actually materialize, the police compartmentalize their behavior and do exactly what they are told.

The local police in your town will do exactly the same if they are ordered to carry out the rules of the city officials in your area. Your local police will do this regardless of what they might say right now.

As we witnessed in Australia, once the police officers start carrying out these types of operations, the only way to make it stop is to make them uncomfortable. That requires mass non-compliance by large numbers of citizens to overcome the mental barrier the police use to justify their conduct.

Then, after the police start getting uncomfortable arresting moms, dads and children, it takes open and vocal public shaming on a large scale toward the officers on a community level to get them to stop.

Remember, when the Chinese government first told the regular army to open fire on the students in Tiananmen Square, the soldiers would not shoot. The Chinese Communist government then brought in the Mongolian divisions who had no connection to the local community. You know what happened next.

This is frightening.

Letting Even Non-citizens Vote

Just the News is reporting today that New York City lawmakers are set to vote on a measure that would amend the city’s charter and allow green card holders and those with work authorizations visas to vote in citywide elections.

The article reports:

Mayor-elect Eric Adams, a Democrat, supported the idea and campaigned on it during his election earlier this year.

“We cannot be a beacon to the world and continue to attract the global talent, energy and entrepreneurship that has allowed our city to thrive for centuries if we do not give immigrants a vote in how this city is run and what are priorities are for the future,” he said while on the campaign trail.

However, Mayor Bill de Blasio, also a Democrat, feels differently.

“I don’t believe it is legal. Our law department is very clear on this,” he said during an interview on “The Brian Lehrer Show.” Adding that the second issue with the proposal is that it undermines efforts to get immigrants to become citizens.

“I think there’s a real set of mixed feelings it generates in me about what’s the right way to approach this issue,” he also said.

The bill stipulates that residents must be living in the city for at least 30 days prior to an election and will apply exclusively to municipal elections, not any state or federal ballot questions.

Anyone willing to make a wager as to how long it will be before the thousands of illegal immigrants streaming into our country will be given some sort of status that allows them to vote in local elections. Even if they can’t vote in federal elections, the true power is in local elections–the local candidates who win their primary elections are the ‘farm team’ for Congress and the Presidency. Laws like this will dramatically change our country from a Constitutional Republic to a place where people who may not understand either our history or how our government is supposed to work are in charge.

Notes On The Kyle Rittenhouse Trial

At some point in the next day or two we will probably get a verdict or a decision on the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. Whatever the verdict or the decision, it will probably be followed by some rioting or violence. Why would there be rioting or violence if the Antifa or Black Lives Matter (BLM) people get the verdict or decision they want? Because it’s not about the verdict or the decision–it’s about chaos, intimidation, and destabilization of society.

There is a drama being played out here, and it will continue to be played out until Americans and the courts put an end to it. The drama includes what is happening in Kenosha and it also includes the recent threatening of the Mayor-elect of New York City by an activist. The activist essentially told the Mayor-elect that if the Mayor-elect chooses to enforce the laws in the city when he takes office, there will be riots. There are those among us who would rather destroy what others have built than successfully build things themselves.

At this point I need to mention that if I were Kyle Rittenhouse’s mother, I would have tied him to the bed to prevent him from going to Kenosha during the riots regardless of how noble his intentions were. However, that is not the question. The fact that he was open carrying a weapon in a riot (legal, but probably not smart) is not the question. Just for the record, of the four people in the incident who were carrying guns, Kyle Rittenhouse was the only person legally entitled to own a gun. The legal question (and the only question that should be asked at this trial) is whether or not Kyle Rittenhouse had the right to defend himself when threatened. During the trial, it was revealed that one of the men shot drew his gun to fire at Kyle Rittenhouse. That evidence alone should be enough for the jury to protect Kyle Rittenhouse’s Second Amendment rights.

So why are we going on day three of jury deliberations? Let’s back up and look at the whole picture. The mainstream media (with no evidence) has portrayed Kyle Rittenhouse as a white supremacist (despite the fact that the three people he shot were white). The media has failed to mention that Kyle Rittenhouse’s father and much of his family lives in Kenosha and that Kyle Rittenhouse when to Kenosha after being asked to help protect private property. Neither of these facts should have any bearing on the verdict, but the omission of these facts is being used to manipulate public opinion. Since the members of the jury have not been sequestered, it is quite likely that they are aware of the media spin and the unrest that spin is fomenting.

Remember, the verdict should be determined by the facts and the law in any case brought before a jury. A verdict should not be influenced by threats of violence against the jury, the judge, or the city. To bow to those threats of violence is mob rule and will only result in future verdicts based on fear of the mob rather than the evidence and law.