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March 2020

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The ‘No Bail’ Fiasco in New York Crime is breaking out again amid a get-out-of-jail-free law.

By on March 7th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-no-bail-fiasco-in-new-yorkthe-no-bail-fiasco-in-new-york-11583534248?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

You know New York has a problem when even Mayor Bill de Blasio admits it. On Thursday the New York Police Department held a press conference to report that major crime is up 22.5% this February over a year ago. Both the cops and the mayor attribute the spike to the bail reform pushed through the state Legislature in Albany last year, which is releasing people who have been arrested for one crime to go out and commit another.

“There’s a direct correlation to a change in the law, and we need to address it, and we will address it,” Mr. de Blasio said of the increase in crime. The mayor also said he was “absolutely confident” it will be addressed in Albany in the budget due April 1.

The Democratic Legislature, with the backing of both Mr. de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, ended cash bail last year. The goal was to prevent cases such as that of Kalief Browder, a 16-year-old charged with stealing a backpack. Because his family could not afford bail he spent three years in prison on Rikers Island—much of it in solitary—without being tried or convicted of a crime. After his release, he ultimately committed suicide.

The sensible part of bail reform was aimed at preventing injustices such as this one. The non-sensible part was to deprive judges of the discretion to keep behind bars criminals who remain a menace to the community.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

More Smoke and Mirrors on Mental Health Mayor de Blasio’s latest promises to the most seriously ill remain hollow. D.J.Jaffe

By on March 7th, 2020

https://www.city-journal.org/de-blasio-thrivenyc-mental-health-plan?utm_source=Bigger+Apple&utm_campaign=
DJ Jaffe is author of Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill, executive director of Mental Illness Policy Org. and an adjunct fellow at Manhattan Institute.

Mayor de Blasio and his wife Chirlane McCray, who serves as his mental-wellness czar, just announced an additional goal for ThriveNYC, their signature $850 million, multiyear mental-health plan: “Reach People with the Highest Needs.” One might think that that priority would have been part of the original plan. In any case, it’s a hollow promise: a close reading of the 2020–2022 ThriveNYC spending plan and “Progress Report” makes it clear that the de Blasio administration will continue to send money to ineffective programs, while giving short shrift to programs that reduce homelessness, arrests, and incarceration of the seriously mentally ill. The mayor and his wife justify the continuing ThriveNYC boondoggle by reporting meaningless and misleading statistics.

Over the last four years, de Blasio and McCray regularly insisted that ThriveNYC was helping the seriously mentally ill. In 2019, McCray told an incredulous city council that 100 percent of ThriveNYC’s funds are used for the seriously ill. The real figure is well short of that mark. New York City Council Speaker Cory Johnson says that only 13 percent of the program’s funds go to the seriously mentally ill. Gary Belkin, the program’s first director, pegged the figure at 19 percent; Susan Herman, ThriveNYC’s current head, says that in 2022 it will go up to 26 percent. 

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Coronavirus: China’s War on the Truth by Giulio Meotti

By on March 7th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15670/china-coronavirus-lies

“The epidemic has exposed this country completely in its corruption, bureaucracy, information control and censorship.” — Phillip Wu, a freelance writer in Beijing, The Guardian, March 1, 2020.

Then there are many instances of journalists and activists who told the truth, but who were arrested or “vanished”. The Chinese regime is now even announcing plans to publish a book in six languages about the outbreak that portrays President Xi as a “major power leader” with “care for the people”.

Italy’s main fatal mistake was trusting China’s regime. Instead of checking everyone — Chinese or Italian — returning from China since January, Italy kept its borders open. We are now dealing with tens of thousands of Italians under quarantine….

The idea that the coronavirus might be related to Wuhan’s virus research laboratory is considered by some a “conspiracy theory”, yet China’s refusal immediately to accept help from the US Centers for Disease Control understandably arouses suspicion.

“On current course, China is liable to do significant damage to the rest the world, by accident or intent,” wrote columnist Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal on January 29.

“The Chinese Communist government increasingly poses an existential threat not just to its own 1.4 billion citizens but to the world at large”, wrote the noted historian Victor Davis Hanson on February 20.

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Republicans Are Blocking Renewal of Commonsense Anti-Terrorism Tools By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on March 6th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/republicans-blocking-renewal-commonsense-anti-terrorism-tools/

Our surveillance laws need revision, but this is not the way to do it.

I  wonder if Congressman Andy Biggs (R., Ariz.) has ever heard of Sayyid Nosair. There was a time not that long ago when Nosair was something of a household name, the kind that the Arizona Republican, a strong conservative who cares a great deal about our national security, would know.

Time flies, though, and memories fade. It’s been 30 years since Nosair, a naturalized American citizen and a hardened jihadist, murdered Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane in one of New York City’s most notorious late-20th-century homicides. It has been 25 years since I led a team of prosecutors who convicted Nosair of conducting a terrorist war against the United States — a war waged by a foreign terrorist organization that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which was plotted in his upstate New York prison cell.

The question of Representative Biggs’s familiarity with Nosair — to say nothing of many other historical instances of Americans collaborating with foreign powers against American interests — suggested itself when I watched him get interviewed on Fox News Thursday morning (see here, about three minutes in). Biggs was asked to weigh in on the GOP’s ongoing intramural skirmish over what is being called “FISA reform,” but, in actuality, has very little to do with that important subject — at least, not directly.

Biggs reminded Fox’s Ed Henry that “the F in FISA stands for ‘foreign,’” his ill-informed point being that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is supposed to be about the surveillance of foreigners, not Americans. Therefore, the argument continued, we need to reform FISA so it is limited to non-Americans; otherwise, the FBI could once again pretextually use it to spy on President Trump, or on another American political campaign, or on the rest of us.

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HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

328 Chinese Nationals Caught Trying To Illegally Enter U.S. At Southern Border By Ryan Saavedra

By on March 6th, 2020

https://www.dailywire.com/news/328-chinese-nationals-caught-trying-to-illegally-ente

The Department of Homeland Security says that hundreds of Chinese nationals have attempted to illegally enter the United States through the southern border since the outbreak of the coronavirus in China.

“Some 328 illegal immigrants from China have been nabbed jumping the U.S.-Mexico border so far this year, according to Homeland Security data that raises the prospect a coronavirus carrier could sneak into the country via the border,” The Washington Times reported. “Three other people from South Korea — another country with rapidly spreading cases — have also been arrested at the border, as have 122 people from the Dominican Republican, where the coronavirus has now been detected.”

The coronavirus, which originated in China in December, has infected more than 91,000 people worldwide and killed well over 3,100 people – with most of the infections and deaths occurring in China.

Border Patrol agents told the Times that in addition to the 1,000 illegal aliens who are caught every day entering the United States through the southern border with Mexico, which is also dealing with an outbreak of the coronavirus, a significant number of illegal aliens are managing to sneak into the country undetected.

“The journey to the U.S. border puts migrants in poor conditions,” a Homeland Security official told The Washington Times. “We don’t know if they have come into contact with someone who has the flu, there is no passport, medical history, or travel manifest.”

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

New York State Republican Chairman Nick Langworthy and Manhattan GOP Chairwoman Andrea Catsimatidis  Endorse Cathy Bernstein for CD-10

By on March 6th, 2020

Cathy is the only qualified candidate in this race to beat Rep. Jerry Nadler
 
Both New York State GOP Chairman Nick Langworthy and Manhattan GOP Chair Andrea Catsimatidis endorsed Cathy Bernstein on Monday evening calling her the only true New York Republican in this race against Jerry Nadler.

 “Cathy is a true New Yorker who has lived and raised her family on the Upper West Side for the past 35 years. She is running because she has personally seen the city decline and is sick and tired of it.  I proudly support her effort to rid Washington and our City of needless Jerry Nadler who has done nothing for Manhattan and Brooklyn except waste tax payer dollars on a witch hunt of our President,” said Chairwoman Catsimatidis.

“Jerry Nadler has spent nearly 30 years in the Washington swamp and accomplished nothing except carrying Nancy Pelosi’s water in an embarrassing partisan attempt to remove our duly-elected President. He has turned a blind eye to the out-of-control homelessness, dilapidated MTA and vacant storefronts across his district. It’s time for change and Cathy Bernstein is the woman to deliver it. Cathy is a mother, an accountant and a civic leader who will go to Congress to deliver results for New Yorkers. I’m proud to endorse her,” said Chairman Nick Langworthy.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How Bad Is Antisemitism In Europe? Surveys Suggest It’s Rampant By Melissa Langsam Braunstein

By on March 6th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/06/how-bad-is-antisemitism-in-europe-surveys-suggest-its-rampant

Hesitating to dub strangers antisemites is wise, especially based on limited information. But the blatant bigotry on parade in Europe underscores that open antisemitism has come roaring back.

The Belgian city of Aalst celebrated this year’s Carnival with grotesque displays of overt antisemitism. Revelers mocked the Wailing Wall, with some dressed as ants in Hasidic hats and others as Nazis. That theme continued in Campo de Criptana, Spain, where Carnival participants dressed up as Nazis and concentration camp prisoners, flanked by chimneys.

The blatant bigotry on parade underscored that open antisemitism has come roaring back. What’s less certain is how many people are fueling that resurgence. Pew Research and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) surveys have approached that question, but it’s easier to ask than to answer.

Calculating that number requires not only a good definition of antisemitism (like International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition) but also a clear understanding of why we’re even asking. Do we want to know where Jews can most comfortably live as visible Jews, most easily assimilate, or simply live in safety, free of physical attacks?

European Attitudes About Jews Are Changing For Worse

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Can Andrew Yang Really Become Mayor Of Gotham? Andrew Yang is considering a run for mayor of New York City and it’s not just a pipe dream. By David Marcus

By on March 6th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/06/can-andrew-yang-really-become-mayor-of-gotham/

“One thing, though anecdotal, that should make Yang feel good about a potential run for Hizzonership is that I’ve spoken to both Democrats and Republicans here who welcome the idea. That’s a very good sign. We will see soon what he chooses to do. But this not a laughable idea. And frankly, after Bill de Blasio, America’s largest city, and the best one in the world, could do a lot worse.”

To understand mayoral politics in New York City, you have to think about two basic facts. First, the city is five to one Democrat to Republican. Two, Since 1992 non-Democrats have been mayor for 20 years: Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg, and a Democrat, Bill de Blasio for only 7. Today’s Democratic Party in the Big Apple is no Tammany Hall; the city’s voters are willing to vote for outsiders.

The news is now swirling that former presidential candidate and famed Asian good at math Andrew Yang is considering a run at Gracey Mansion (that’s where the mayor lives). Right off the bat, it’s one of these wonderfully provocative political ideas to consider. But in practice what would it look like?

The first question is whether Yang would run in the Democratic primary or launch an Independent bid. Let’s assume he does the former. This is a heavy lift. He has no substantial contacts in the local party, and would only have until November 2021 to develop them. There are also rumors that Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., of impeachment fame is weighing his own candidacy for mayor.

One way to ingratiate yourself to a political party, in fact the best way to do so is to give the party tons of cash. On Friday Yang announced the launch of his new non-profit “Move Humanity Forward.” The organization will support candidates in favor of Universal Basic Income (UBI), a fancy way of say a thousand smackers a month for everyone.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

U.S. Added 273,000 Jobs in February Before Coronavirus Spread Widely The monthly employment report left unanswered questions about the potential economic impact of the outbreak.

By on March 6th, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/business/economy/jobs-report.html?emc=edit_

For the second month in a row, the economy churned out a blockbuster number of jobs, the government reported Friday, an impressive performance in an era of slow-and-steady employment growth.

With the coronavirus outbreak shaking economic confidence, the solid showing in February may not be a harbinger of continued strength.

Still, the report from the Department of Labor offered a refreshing breath of positive economic news. Employers expanded payrolls by 273,000 jobs in February, while revisions to data from previous months added 85,000 more jobs to the tally. The jobless rate ticked down to 3.5 percent.

“It’s certainly a relief that we had a strong tailwind,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton. “Service, leisure and hospitality, these are all very vulnerable. The good news is that these workers had some cushion ahead of time. It helps blunt the blow.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Democrat Lawmakers defeated consideration of the anti BDS bill by a tally of 219-194.

By on March 6th, 2020

https://worldisraelnews.com/us-house-democrats-block-anti-bds-bill/?utm_source=M

Lawmakers defeated consideration of the bill by a tally of 219-194.

By JNS

Democrats blocked a bill on Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives that would have prohibited U.S. support for the anti-Israel BDS movement.

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act, introduced by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), would have expanded the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 to include prohibiting U.S. support for foreign boycotts of Israel from groups including the European Union and the U.N. Human Rights Council.

“We cannot be quiet when it comes to combating anti-Semitism and anti-Israel mentalities,” said Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) on the House floor. “We need to work together in Congress and pass common-sense legislation on this issue. H.R. 5595 does just that.”

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