New York City - Miscegenous Mayor 'Comrade' Bill De Blasio in the news

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/10/de-blasio-doubles-down-on-support-for-black-lives-matter-marches/

De Blasio doubles down on support of Black Lives Matter protests in NYC
By Nolan Hicks and Carl Campanile
July 10, 2020 | 1:36pm | Updated

Mayor Bill de Blasio doubled down Friday on his decision to bless Black Lives Matter marches wherever and whenever they may happen while pulling the permits for the Big Apple’s usual slate of summertime parades and street festivals due to the threat posed by large gatherings amid the coronavirus.

“I’ve said many times — the protests, this is a particular moment in history where 400 years of oppression, 400 years of racism are being addressed in a very powerful way,” Hizzoner said. “That can’t compare to anything else.” :bow:

De Blasio made the remarks after again reiterating that it would be unsafe to allow parades and festivals that often bring tens of thousands to the streets because of the risk of transmitting COVID-19 — and the need to use the city’s public space and resources to bolster its street closure programs for pedestrians and restaurants.

City Hall said Thursday that the ban on such cultural heritage parades and street fairs as the Dominican Day Parade, the West Indian American Carnival and the San Gennaro Festival will last through at least Sept. 30.

“It just made more sense to keep the focus on what is working now, to maximize the space available to people and not have it taken up by large events. Right now, what people are doing,” de Blasio added, “is they’re getting fresh air and recreation the right way, with a lot of devotion to social distancing and face coverings.”

“That can’t happen if events are interfering with the way we’ve set things up. It just makes more sense not to have them,” he said, although most of the events are one-day affairs.

Event organizers told The Post they were frustrated by the seeming double standard from City Hall between their parades and the protests fueled by outrage over the videotaped killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody in May.

“The mayor is being inconsistent for allowing the protests without people practicing social distancing or wearing masks,” said Angelo Vivolo, who chairs the Columbus Citizens Foundation that puts on the annual Columbus Day parade in October — the fate of which remains up in the air.

“Dr. Fauci said it’s dangerous. I’ve got to believe him,” Vivolo added, referencing the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a Brooklyn native. “I’m worried there will be some more outbreaks of COVID because protesters aren’t wearing masks and practicing social distancing.”

 

[Ensis]

Why doesn't Trump DO something about that foul mural? It's right next to his building!

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/21/de-blasio-no-timeline-to-clean-graffiti-off-dinkins-building/

De Blasio won’t say when anti-cop graffiti will be removed from Dinkins building
By Julia Marsh and Tina Moore
July 21, 2020 | 2:41pm | Updated

Mayor Bill de Blasio refused to say when city workers would clean graffiti that says “F–k cops” and “ACAB” (for “All cops are bastards”) from the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building in Lower Manhattan — even though Department of Transportation workers immediately restored the Black Lives Matter mural outside Trump Tower after it was defaced twice last week.

“The graffiti is just not acceptable and I want to be very clear, graffiti on public buildings will be removed, period,” de Blasio said when asked about the ugly scrawling on the Dinkins building and surrounding municipal property.

“There are some challenges just technically with the surfaces,” de Blasio said about the delay.

“Cleaning off the graffiti in this case with the particular stone as I understand it comes with a lot more work and complication. One would think paint on a street is a much simpler matter,” he said.

He refused to provide a timeline for the work.

“It’s upsetting that the city has no plan to remove the horrifying graffiti from the David Dinkins Municipal Building,” local resident Jamal Roberts told The Post.

“It’s been over 30 days and the excuse that the stone is challenging is an insult to the legacy of the first African American mayor. It truly is the tale of two graffitis. The mayor is only concerned with cleaning the one that fits his political narrative,” said Roberts, 35.

Graffiti on the David Dinkins Municipal Building
William Farrington


DOT workers scrubbed red paint poured on the bright yellow letters of the Black Lives Matter mural in front of Trump Tower just 24 hours after a man defaced the tribute last week, and again when four people were arrested for dumping blue paint on it just days later.

No arrests have been made for the defacement of the Dinkins or nearby public buildings.

“Are we surprised? That just shows how he’s been since the beginning,” a police source told The Post.

“He’s never been a big fan of the NYPD or the officers under him. That’s why crime is up because the cops know they have a mayor that doesn’t care,” the source said.

The graffiti appeared on the municipal property including the historic Tweed Court House and Surrogate’s Court on Chambers Street when protesters began occupying City Hall Park last month to demand $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD’s budget.

Even though the mayor approved the cuts, the encampment remains.

“There is a balance we always strike between the right to protest and especially public safety and I’ve always put public safety first while respecting constitutional rights,” de Blasio said, without mentioning the protester who attacked a Post reporter with a piece of wood.

De Blasio also declined to say how long he’d allow the encampment to continue.

“That decision will be made by the NYPD as things emerge. We’re looking at the situation every day,” he said.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/21/staten-island-banner-shows-de-blasio-holding-lady-libertys-head/

NYC banner shows de Blasio holding Lady Liberty’s severed head
By Tamar Lapin
July 21, 2020 | 6:56pm

It’s Blaz the impaler.

A banner unfurled over the Staten Island Expressway Tuesday shows New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio smirking in a Che Guevara shirt — while holding up Lady Liberty’s severed, bloody head.

“It’s what he’s doing to New York, he’s severing the head of the greatest city on earth,” said the artist behind the eye-grabbing work, Scott LoBaido.

The Staten Islander was spurred to take a stab at Hizzoner over his response to the Black Lives Matter protests raging in the Big Apple.

“New York has turned into a sh–hole because of this guy,” LoBaido said of the mayor. “He hates the true New Yorkers: police officers, firefighters… people who built this city.”

The pro-Trump artist was also angered that a blue line he painted to support of the NYPD in front of the 122nd Precinct in New Dorp Monday was vandalized with “Black Lives Matter” graffiti shortly after it was completed.

“That thin blue line separates anarchy from civilization,” he told The Post.

Artist Scott LoBaido unveils a banner depicting Mayor Bill de Blasio wearing a Che Guevara shirt and holding the Statue of LIberty's head is seen hanging above the Staten Island expressway near Targee St.
Wayne Fleming/Emerald Films


So LoBaido put his feelings down on paper, and hung his striking banner over the expressway’s west-bound ramp Exit 13B during afternoon rush hour.

His aim was to “fire up the masses” about De Blasio’s lacking leadership — and he said several cars honked their horns “like crazy” as the work was unveiled.

While cops asked LoBaido to take the print down about an hour and a half after it went up, the controversial artist said he’s got plans to hang it elsewhere in the city in the future.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/22/de-blasio-finally-cleans-up-anti-cop-graffiti-from-dinkins-buidling/

De Blasio finally cleans up anti-cop graffiti from Dinkins building after prodding
By Julia Marsh, Carl Campanile and Natalie Musumeci
July 22, 2020 | 1:02pm | Updated

Mayor Bill de Blasio finally took action Wednesday to clean the anti-cop graffiti from the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building in Lower Manhattan and to clear out the remaining Occupy City Hall protesters from a nearby park — after he was hounded by The Post and other members of the press.

“That graffiti on those public buildings is being cleaned up right now as we speak,” de Blasio said during his daily morning City Hall press briefing, even though a day earlier he could not even provide a timeline for when the vandalism would be scrubbed when asked by The Post.

The scrawlings, including some that read “F–k cops” and “ACAB” (for “All cops are bastards”), popped up on municipal property, including the historic Tweed Court House and Surrogate’s Court on Chambers Street, when protesters began occupying City Hall Park last month to demand $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD’s budget.

A specialized contractor, Superstructures Engineers + Associates, was hired to complete the cleanup on the three landmarked buildings at a cost of $150,000 to city taxpayers.

De Blasio appeared in no rush over the past few weeks to clean off the graffiti from the Dinkins building — named after the city’s first and only black mayor — but he was quick to restore the Black Lives Matter mural outside Trump Tower after it was defaced twice last week.

Early Wednesday, a line of NYPD officers in riot gear also dismantled the month-old encampment at City Hall Park — a move de Blasio said he and NYPD brass called for at 10 p.m. Tuesday even though he told reporters during a briefing hours earlier that there were no plans to end the occupation.

“It’s something I’ve been evaluating over the last few weeks,” de Blasio claimed Wednesday in reference to ending the encampment.

“What we saw change over the last few weeks was the gathering there got smaller and smaller, was less and less about protests and more and more became an area where homeless folks were gathering,” the mayor said, echoing almost verbatim what a reporter posited in a question to him 24 hours earlier.

But de Blasio made no mention of that Tuesday in answering that question, saying, “There is a balance we always strike between the right to protest and especially public safety and I’ve always put public safety first while respecting constitutional rights.”

By Wednesday, the mayor’s tune had significantly changed. “The health and safety issues were growing,” he said. “It was time to take action. That was a decision we made yesterday.”

A Post reporter was attacked by an Occupy City Hall protester wielding a piece of wood more than a week ago.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea, who was present for de Blasio’s briefing, said 40 to 50 people were at City Hall Park when the cops dismantled the encampment around 3 a.m.

“A lot of planning went into it,” Shea said. “We did recover a number of bricks, sticks, brooms, some drug paraphernalia in some of the tents that were left.”

The city’s top cop also said he “couldn’t be happier” with the outcome since there were no injuries and “no real use of force.”

However, he said, “There was some tugging and back and forth … there were people trying to punch officers.”

“Ultimately, I think I would categorize it as one for the win column and another step toward getting back to normalcy here in New York City,” Shea added.

Police made one arrest and handed out six summonses as they cleared out the park space, the commissioner said.

Workers are washing graffiti off buildings after police cleared out the Occupy City Hall encampment today.
William Farrington


GOP mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa said he thinks de Blasio was shamed into cleaning up the Occupy City Hall encampment after The Post pressed him about the lack of action to clean up the graffiti vandalism at the nearby municipal building named for Dinkins.

“This is an absolute disgrace. It was so embarrassing hearing his fecklessness,” Sliwa said. “How could you allow them to desecrate a building named after your mentor?”

“It reminded me of the way it was when David Dinkins was mayor,” Sliwa said.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/23/de-blasio-black-lives-matter-transcends-any-notion-of-politics/

De Blasio says Black Lives Matter matters more than all other groups
By Julia Marsh, Craig McCarthy, Nolan Hicks and Natalie Musumeci
July 23, 2020 | 2:13pm | Updated

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday that the Black Lives Matter movement “transcends any notion of politics,” as he defended allowing the words to be painted on streets across the city while not approving similar mural requests from groups like the pro-cop Blue Lives Matter.

“This is about something much bigger than any one group,” de Blasio said during his daily City Hall press briefing in response to a reporter’s question about whether he would green-light mural requests from groups like Blue Lives Matter and Women for America First.

“This is about righting a wrong and moving forward. So I think that’s the right approach,” Hizzoner said as he explained why he had “Black Lives Matter” painted in massive yellow letters on city streets, taking part in several of the painting processes.

Last month, de Blasio announced that the city would paint the BLM murals in each borough amid the massive protests in the Big Apple, and around the country, in response to the May 25 police killing of St. George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“I think we have had a seismic moment in this country’s history,” de Blasio said Thursday as he compared the recent nationwide protests to the “civil rights movement of ’50s and ’60s in terms of its importance.”

“The original sin of the United States of America — slavery, and all of the effects over 400 years being brought out into the open in a new way and a chance for this country to get it right to address this problem to move forward and it’s summarized in the three words: Black Lives Matter,” he said.

Pro- and anti-Trump supporters protest outside of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
Adam Gray/SWNS


De Blasio said he does not believe “Black Lives Matter” is “a political message in the traditional sense.”

“I think it’s a message about human respect and the value of human beings and addressing the fact that one group amongst us in particular has been devalued for centuries and that can’t go on,” Hizzoner said. :bow:

But civil liberties lawyer Normal Siegel called the mayor out for claiming his BLM moves have not been political. “De Blasio, once again, doesn’t get it,” said Siegel. “He got it wrong.

“He’s putting something out there that isn’t valid. How can you argue that it’s not a political statement? How did he pick the block between 56th and 57th Street,” Siegel said, referring to the location of the BLM mural in front of Trump Tower.

The former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union said the mayor’s argument wouldn’t hold up in court.

“Once you open the door and allow Black Lives Matter murals to be on the streets of New York, you can’t now turn down Blue Lives Matter. That would be a violation of the free speech provision of the Constitution,” Siegel said.

Hawk Newsome, president of Black Lives Matter’s Greater New York chapter, told The Post that he agreed with de Blasio’s sentiment.

“This is beyond politics,” Newsome said of Black Lives Matter, adding, “I rarely agree with Mayor de Blasio, but on this one I do.

“We are talking about the liberation of people who have been oppressed on this land for over four centuries,” Newsome said. “This is about the ability to pursue life, liberty and happiness.”

Newsome denounced groups like Blue Lives Matter wanting a similar mural in the city for recognition.

“Let’s be realistic … what the f–k is a blue life?” Newsome said. “I didn’t choose to be black. People choose to be police officers. If you don’t like the way you’re treated or criticized as a cop or the critiques, get a new job.”

Earlier this month, the group Blue Lives Matter NYC penned a letter to the mayor asking to have a “Blue Lives Matter” mural painted outside NYPD headquarters in Lower Manhattan.

“There is no such thing as a blue person, but that blue uniform makes up the best of the best that this world has to offer from all walks of life,” said the group’s founder, Sgt. Joe Imperatrice.

“If we are going to begin to value all human lives it starts with these guardians,” he said.

When asked if de Blasio will approve the requested “Blue Lives Matter” mural, City Hall spokeswoman Julia Arredondo said last week: “It’s not open season to paint our streets. DOT [Department of Transportation] has an application process, and requests must go through their site, not open letters.

“For all lives to matter, we must first make clear that black lives matter. That is why we approved the murals and met those words with actions,” Arredondo said.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/24/de-blasio-quotes-communist-karl-marx-in-nyc-radio-interview/

De Blasio quotes Karl Marx in WNYC radio interview
By Julia Marsh and Bruce Golding
July 24, 2020 | 12:12pm | Updated

First it was Che Guevara — now it’s Karl Marx!

Mayor Bill de Blasio reached back to his salad days as a young radical to quote the father of communism on Friday.

During his weekly appearance on WNYC radio, de Blasio was asked about a recent report that said his “long-held antipathy toward well-heeled private sector interests” was jeopardizing the city’s economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis.

In response, de Blasio admitted that “my focus has not been on the business community and the elites” before adding, “I am tempted to borrow from Karl Marx here.”

Hizzoner then went to recite from memory a concept expressed in Chapter 1 of the infamous “Communist Manifesto” written by Marx and comrade Friedrich Engels in 1848.

“There’s a famous quote that the ‘the state is the executive committee of the bourgeois’ and I use it openly to say, ‘No,'” de Blasio said.

“I actually read that as a young person and I said, ‘That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.'”

The mayor added: “The business community matters, we need to work with the business community, we will work with the business community — but the city government represents the people, represents working people, and mayors should not be too cozy with the business community, governors should not be too cozy with the business community.”

De Blasio’s remarks sparked outrage from the leaders of several prominent business groups.

Kathy Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, said that de Blasio “suggests that the business community somehow does not represent working people, which is an ideological position and not an accurate representation of our city’s highly diverse private sector.”

“This crisis is a moment to bring the people of New York together, not to divide them,” said Wylde, whose organization represents businesses that collectively employ 1.5 million New Yorkers.

Jay Martin of the Community Housing Improvement Program, which represents 4,000 building owners, accused de Blasio of having “done nothing to improve the living conditions of tens of thousands of [public-housing] residents.”

“He talks about a Marxist utopia and demonizes the very businesses that fund his progressive pet projects, while many of his constituents live without hot water because of his incompetence,” Martin said.

“Do better Mr. Mayor. Or resign.”

Andrew Rigie of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, which represents thousands of restaurants and bars, said, “The business community is made up of small business owners who are working people who city government should represent.”

“I’m not sure making distinctions between groups of people who are all important unites us to help heal and save our city,” he added.

De Blasio has acknowledged past support for the former, communist Sandinista government of Nicaragua, where he went on a relief mission in 1988.

“They were in their own humble way, in this small country, trying to figure out what would work better,” he told the New York Times in 2013.

More recently, de Blasio has eagerly helped paint city streets to promote the “Black Lives Matter” movement, which was initially organized by “trained Marxists,” co-founder Patrisse Cullors reportedly admitted in a 2015 interview.

He and First Lady Chirlane McCray also went to Cuba for their 1994 honeymoon, flying there from Canada to illegally skirt an American travel ban against the communist island nation.

During his failed presidential bid last year, de Blasio sparked controversy by quoting a rallying cry associated with Guevara, the late Cuban communist revolutionary.

He later apologized for that remark.

The mayor’s memorization of the Communist Manifesto is fairly accurate, according to a version posted online at the marxists.org website.

That translation of the pamphlet, which was originally written in German, says, “The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.”

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/24/homeless-encampment-in-nyc-growing-despite-de-blasios-crackdown/

Homeless encampment in NYC getting ‘bigger’ despite de Blasio’s ‘crackdown’
By Lorena Mongelli and Bruce Golding
July 24, 2020 | 9:05pm

An entrenched group of homeless people is making life miserable for residents and merchants in Manhattan’s East Village — despite Mayor Bill de Blasio’s vow to “do whatever it takes” to break up such encampments.

The vagrants are living under a stretch of scaffolding along Second Avenue between East Seventh and East Eighth streets, where they’ve arranged cast-off furniture and set up a tarp under which two men were sleeping Friday afternoon.

“It makes me feel uncomfortable. It makes our city dirty and noisy,” said neighborhood resident Olga, 78, who’s lived in the East Village for 33 years.

“There was one woman who was making pee-pee and caca by the bus stop. It was very dirty and disgusting. Nobody wanted to use the bus stop.”

The owner of an eatery across the street also said the situation appeared to be spiraling out of control.

“They started camping out there when the weather got warmer and recently it got bigger,” the restaurateur said.

“Some of them have mental issues. They drink a lot and fight with each other. They throw bottles.”

The makeshift homeless encampment in the East Village.
Stephen Yang


On Thursday, de Blasio was questioned during his daily news conference about a series of other encampments across Manhattan, following a NYPD raid that broke up the “Occupy City Hall” site early Wednesday morning, about month after it was established.

“Anyone who tells us about an encampment, we’re going to have it addressed right away by Homeless Services, Sanitation, [NY]PD,” de Blasio said.

“Whatever it takes.”

One homeless resident of the East Village encampment, who identified herself as Solaura, 43, said she wound up there after losing a taxpayer-funded bed at the DoubleTree hotel in Chelsea.

Solaura, whose face and limbs are covered with tattoos, said she was a transsexual sex worker and was unable to abide by rules that required her to be inside by 10 p.m.

Solaura, one of the residents of the encampment.
Stephen Yang


“I am a highly marginalized individual and I just don’t have the same opportunity as a lot of cisgender people as far as employment goes, so the work I do is at night or I would have no income,” she said.

Another resident, who gave his name as Macswel Hasanoeddin, said he was registered to stay at a nearby shelter but had been living at the encampment on and off for the past two or three weeks.

“In homeless shelters, people feel like it’s like a jail,” said Hasanoeddin, 52.

“There are a lot of concerns about things getting stolen so a lot of people don’t want to go. Curfew isn’t bad but there are other factors that people don’t wanna deal with, so they’d rather stay on the street.”

City Hall didn’t return a request for comment.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/25/de-blasio-rips-yankees-for-inviting-trump-to-throw-first-pitch/

De Blasio rips Yankees for allowing Trump to throw first pitch at Yankee Stadium
By Vincent Barone
July 25, 2020 | 10:22pm

President Trump’s not fit for pinstripes, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The mayor slammed the New York Yankees for inviting “hatred to your pitcher’s mound” by allowing President Trump to throw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium next month.

“After CONDEMNING racism, the next step isn’t inviting it to your pitcher’s mound,” de Blasio tweeted Saturday.

“To the execs that have aligned with hatred, you are on the wrong side of history and morality,” he added.

The mayor meanwhile praised Yankees and Washington Nationals players who knelt in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement before the national anthem was played on Opening Day earlier this week.

Trump said he plans to throw out the first pitch in front of a virtually empty stadium in the Bronx when the Yankees take on their archrivals — and the mayor’s favorite team — the Boston Red Sox, on Aug. 15.

Trump’s mound visit will mark the first time he’s participating in the long-held presidential tradition.

“They say, ‘How’s the crowd gonna be?’ And you know, it’s like you don’t have a crowd, there was no such thing it’s gonna be interesting,” Trump predicted Thursday.

 

[saturnsrings]

He is married to a negro. So he is part of that plan.
These "homeless" in NYC...they can go get a job. For whites, that town is unlivable.
I read that the cost of renting a hauling trailer is really high, because they know people want to leave.
It will be interesting as more whites leave. Will the businesses turn around and hire nonwhites? That's the kiss of death!

 

[Ensis]

He must have had daddy issues--like his father abandoning him and his family for someone else. Why else is he so screwed in the head. Fortunately, my father was a strong white father and not a weakling of a beta manlet.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/26/homeless-rebuild-east-village-encampment-in-less-than-24-hours/

Homeless rebuild East Village encampment in less than 24 hours
By Kevin Sheehan and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon
July 26, 2020 | 5:24pm

Sidewalk-dwellers returned to their East Village homeless encampment Sunday — less than 24 hours after city sanitation workers took it apart and hauled it away.

Several homeless people were back at the make-shift community, which sprung up in recent weeks on the sidewalk on Second Avenue between Seventh and Eighth streets, complete with a desk, a large headboard, a mattress and access to a city phone-charging kiosk.

“We had a blissful 12 hours of peace,” area resident Vanessa Valdes said in an email to The Post Sunday. “They are back and rebuilding structures again. I saw five people, including the sex worker interviewed in (a Post) article. What can be done?”

Photos shot by Valdes Sunday show a tarp stretched from the scaffolding to an apparent cot on the ground — sheltering a crooked shelving unit. Two people can be seen snoozing away in the summer heat.

Long the subject of complaints from neighbors, the encampment rose up under scaffolding erected on the site of an apartment building gutted by a thunderous gas explosion in 2015.

Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed to clear out similar encampments in the Big Apple and on Saturday a sanitation crew moved in to follow through.
see also
Homeless encampment getting 'bigger' despite de Blasio 'crackdown'

However, locals said the homeless occupants simply went across the street, waited under the marquee of the Orpheum Theater, and returned when the city workers were gone.

“I call them the end of the world people,” said one 50-year-old neighbor, who only identified herself as Ann. “They’re a little different. they’re young. They say they want to live off the grid.”

But their presence was an eyesore for local residents and merchants.

“They clear it out two times. They come back right away,” said Mike Tarabih, 45, a cook at the nearby B&H Restaurant. “It’s too much. The blankets, the beds the furniture. They make apartments on the sidewalk. Customers say, ‘No, I go somewhere else.'”

In a statement Sunday, the city Department Homeless Services said the agency responds to similar situations “as quickly as we can,” but said the encampments represent a challenge to outreach workers.

“Anytime we encounter or learn about a condition on the street that needs to be addressed, we do so as quickly as we can, discussing directly with any unsheltered individuals who may be there at the time the options and resources available to them, and coordinating with partner agencies as needed,” DHS spokesman Isaac McGinn said in an email.

“Engaging those in need isn’t easy or quick work, nor is accepting services for those who’ve lived unsheltered for some time,” McGinn added. “It requires persistence, compassion, and trust, and we will keep coming back.”

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/28/de-blasio-thinks-nyc-should-reexamine-seal-depicting-native-american/

De Blasio thinks NYC should reexamine seal depicting Native American
By Julia Marsh and Tamar Lapin
July 28, 2020 | 1:13am

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday pledged to reexamine the official seal of New York City over its depiction of a Native American in a loincloth and an early settler holding a rope with a loop on its end.

“It’s the kind of thing a commission should look at carefully and decide if it still makes sense for the 21st century,” the mayor said at his daily briefing.

The comment came in response to a question from a WCBS reporter, who asked whether de Blasio’s new “Commission on Racial Justice and Reconciliation” or another entity “is taking a look at that seal and wondering how relevant it is these days.”

The century-old emblem depicts “Sinister, an Indian of Manhattan” with two eagle feathers, clutching a bow, according to the official New York City website. He also holds up a shield alongside the colonial man, identified as Dexter, a sailor.

Official Seal of New York CityOfficial Seal of New York City


The rope the settler holds is identified as a plummet, a tool used to measure water depth.

“It’s an important symbol, and we should examine it ,” the mayor said when asked to elaborate on his views during an appearance on NY1’s “Inside City Hall” Monday night.

“I think this symbol, you could see it different ways, but it really is worth looking at carefully.”

He added: “Look, I mean, it says 1625 right there on it.”

“It’s 2020. It’s a very different time,” de Blasio said. “We should think about all our symbols and that’s I think a healthy thing to do.”

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/28/thrivenyc-website-reveals-1-25b-programs-empty-boasts/

Chirlane McCray’s new ThriveNYC website reveals $1.25B program’s empty boasts
By Julia Marsh
July 28, 2020 | 6:41pm

It’s all sizzle and no steak.

First lady Chirlane McCray’s ThriveNYC unveiled a splashy new website Monday purporting to show the $1.25 billion plan has “dramatically improved the landscape of mental health services in New York City over the last five years.”

But a closer look at geocoded maps and colorful bar graphs in the “Data Dashboard” reveals missing metrics for over two-thirds of the programs, no advancements for about half of the initiatives and a major decrease in services badly needed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

And there’s only six months worth of data for the nearly five-year-old program.

“The dashboard currently has data for the first two quarters of Fiscal Year 2020 because we published and began gathering data on outcome measures at the beginning of FY20,” ThriveNYC External Affairs Director Nicole Torres told The Post.

“More data will be added in coming months,” she said.

“The dashboard includes maps of service locations for all ThriveNYC programs, all of which are new in the last five years — that’s how we have ‘changed the landscape of mental health,’” she added.

The site does show that serious racial inequities persist nearly five years after McCray launched ThriveNYC in November 2015.

One graph plots how the poorest neighborhoods have double the amount of psychiatric hospitalizations compared to wealthier sections of the city despite Thrive’s $220 million annual budget that focuses on helping the neediest New Yorkers.

“Normally, we could articulate how Thrive has failed us by anecdotal evidence or the umber of mentally ill on our streets,” said Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island).

“At least now, we can quantify just how much success has evaded this expensive program,” Borelli said.

Placeholders like “coming in summer 2020” filled up the spaces where data should have been in 23 of the 31 programs — even though it’s halfway through the summer.

Several programs showed a decrease in the number of people served or the percentage of people who say they were helped between the last three months of 2019 and the first three months of 2020 including mental health services for veterans.

For example, ThriveNYC connected 2,593 veterans to services during the first quarter, but just 736 former military members got help during the second quarter. The percentage of vets who sought services and got them also declined from 83 percent to 74 percent during that same period.

Torres said engagement numbers were higher during the first quarter because of a special outreach program to enroll veterans in reduced-cost Metrocards.

One of ThriveNYC’s signature programs, the mental health hotline NYC Well, saw 6,500 fewer callers during the first three months of this year that includes the start of the pandemic than the last part of 2019.

The percentage of people who said they were satisfied with the service also declined from 91 percent to 77 percent.

“There is some normal variation quarter-to-quarter in calls to NYC Well,” Torres said. “The helpline is still on track to meet its annual target.”

A second councilman told The Post the new website is a testament to the program’s missteps, rather than achievements.

“If this is what Chirlane and her co-mayor husband are calling a success, then they need to seek some counseling of their own,” quipped Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens).

“This new site highlights the inequities in access to mental health care, clearly showing that Thrive has failed to improve the situation with five years and a billion dollars to work with.

“New Yorkers are sick and tired of their Marxist spin where their politburo can do no wrong. It’s time for them to pack up their tired ThriveNYC act and try to sell it somewhere else,” Holden said.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/28/apparent-junkies-turn-part-of-nycs-midtown-into-shooting-gallery/

Apparent junkies turn stretch of NYC’s Midtown into a shooting gallery
By Julie Coleman and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon
July 28, 2020 | 4:52pm | Updated

A woman injects herself with a needle near a pedestrian plaza at Broadway and West 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan. Gregory P. Mango


It’s the Great Black Tar Way.

A cluster of junkies has turned Broadway into a shooting gallery, injecting drugs unhampered in broad daylight and then shuffling around in a zonked-out stupor, seemingly oblivious to the Midtown bustle around them, The Post has learned.

If that wasn’t enough, the addicts are peppering the area with used syringes, turning individual planters on 40th Street and Broadway into mini needle parks.

“They’ve taken over the tables, blatantly using needles and shooting up heroin all day long,” said a local worker who asked that he only be identified as James. “There’s no police action, there’s no reach-out. There’s nobody preventing this, and you know we’ve had multiple calls to 311 but nobody really responds. It’s becoming a real problem.”

He called his own 311 calls “futile exercises.”

The Post spotted several of the spent needles dumped at the scene — and even caught one of the vagrants shooting up out in the open on Tuesday afternoon, with no one stepping in or saying a word.

Another photo from a local showed four people slumped over at one of the tables at the busy intersection earlier in the day, with drug paraphernalia clearly visible between them.

“In the morning, they start early in the morning,” said construction worker Edgar Rivera, who’s been working at a nearby site in recent weeks. “It’s almost always the same people you see around. It’s always the same ones all the time. They are, like, here every day.”

“We see them sleeping on the floor,” Rivera said. “Sometimes the ambulances come around here to help them out. It’s always the same guys.”

An employee for a private sanitation company who gave the name Jeff said he’s worked in the area for about six years and the situation has gotten

“Disappointing the way they discard all the syringes. It’s not the safest,” he said. “In the last year, it’s gotten really bad. I’ve been seeing more syringes, discarded syringes, ever since they started coming in.”

In a statement late Tuesday, a City Hall spokesperson called the situation “entirely unacceptable.”

“We will do everything we can to connect these people with drug treatment and help so they can get their lives back on track,” the statement said.

Police said they have only received one drug complaint in the area over the past month, and the suspects were gone by the time cops arrived.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/30/de-bl...ack-lives-matter-mural-as-shootings-continue/

De Blasio paints another Black Lives Matter mural, as shootings plague NYC
By Khristina Narizhnaya and Julia Marsh
July 30, 2020 | 3:15pm

Mayor Bill de Blasio rolled up his shirtsleeves to paint another Black Lives Matter mural on a city street Thursday, but offered no solutions to tackle rising crime as 10 more New Yorkers were shot in The Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn in just the last two days.

De Blasio grabbed a roller to fill in the yellow letters spelling out the movement’s slogan on Jamaica Avenue near 150th Street in Queens. He also posed for photos with constituents under a street sign at Jamaica Avenue and 153rd Street that was renamed “Black Lives Matter Avenue.”

The mural painting was the only public event on Hizzoner’s public schedule Thursday aside from his daily press briefing where he failed to even mention the 10 people shot in eight incidents across the city Tuesday and Wednesday.

Instead de Blasio attacked The Post after being asked about an article that debunked his claims tying the crime surge to a coronavirus-induced courts slowdown.

This week’s gunfire victims include a 24-year-old man hit in the arm in Claremont Village in The Bronx just after midnight Tuesday, a 34-year-old man shot in the leg in Harlem around 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, and a 26-year-old man struck later that night in Sunset Park. The city’s seen a 72 percent jump in shooting incidents compared to last year.

De Blasio has participated in several BLM mural projects including the most controversial one on Fifth Avenue in front of Trump Tower.

He defended the Fifth Avenue painting even after Rep. Peter King (R-NY) said the move hampered his delegation’s efforts to get fellow GOP senators to give federal aid to cities.

“It was exactly the right thing to do to paint that mural and we’re going to keep sending that message constantly that Black Lives Matter in New York City,” de Blasio said at Thursday’s briefing.

“They need to matter all over the country. That has nothing to do with the stimulus,” he said.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/08/03/de-blasio-admits-city-skipped-permit-process-to-paint-blm-murals/

De Blasio admits city skipped permit process to paint Black Lives Matter murals
By Julia Marsh
August 3, 2020 | 12:25pm | Updated

City officials ignored their own application process for public art projects to paint Black Lives Matter murals around the five boroughs, in order to mark an important moment in history, Mayor Bill de Blasio said as his administration faces claims of First Amendment violations for refusing to green-light other proposals.

“We haven’t said ‘no’ to people, we’ve said, ‘If you want to apply, you can apply, but there’s a process,'” de Blasio said during his City Hall press briefing Monday.

The pro-President Trump group Women for America First has sued City Hall for blocking a mural of their slogan “Engaging, Inspiring and Empowering Women to Make a Difference!” on a Manhattan roadway, while allowing multiple BLM paintings throughout the city.

Hizzoner insists he didn’t block the move, just referred groups like Women for America First and the pro-police Blue Lives Matter to the Department of Transportation’s permitting process. But there was no approval required for the BLM movement.

“That is something that again transcends all normal realities because we are at a moment of history when that had to be said and done, that’s a decision I made,” de Blasio said.

“But the normal process continues for anyone who wants to apply,” he added.

When asked about the application criteria, Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg was vague.

“Anyone can apply through our public art program. As the mayor has said, the city does have discretion as well on painting those projects,” Trottenberg said.

De Blasio has said the BLM protest movement “transcends any notion of politics” even though he painted the most prominent BLM mural directly in front of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.

But civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel predicted de Blasio’s argument won’t hold up in court.

“Once you open the door and allow Black Lives Matter murals to be on the streets of New York, you can’t now turn down Blue Lives Matter. That would be a violation of the free speech provision of the Constitution,” Siegel told The Post.

Oddly, it took city officials a full week to clean graffiti off the BLM mural in front of Trump Tower after a vandal threw paint on it.

Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa attributed the delay to the mayor’s notoriously short attention span.

“City Hall doesn’t seem to care any longer about this BLM logo. The mayor seems to have ADD on this matter, like he does most matters in NYC,” Sliwa said.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/08/03/pathetic-de-blasio-still-hasnt-cleaned-trump-tower-blm-mural/

Mayor de Blasio blasted as ‘pathetic’ for not cleaning vandalized BLM mural
By Reuven Fenton, Julia Marsh and Amanda Woods
August 3, 2020 | 10:15am | Updated

The Black Lives Matter mural in front of Trump Tower
William Miller


The city finally cleaned up splotches of red and white paint thrown on the Black Lives Matter mural in front of Trump Tower a week after the vandal struck — with New Yorkers blaming “pathetic” Mayor Bill de Blasio for the delay.

Mark-David Hutt, 31, of Rochester, NY, was busted on two consecutive days last weekend — July 25 and 26 — for tossing paint on the city’s most controversial BLM display on Fifth Avenue near East 56th Street.

On the first day, he was busted just after 5 p.m., and the next morning, he was back at it — and cuffed at 10:10 a.m., cops said. He was issued desk appearance tickets on each day.

A spokesman for Mayor de Blasio’s office confirmed late Monday morning that the paint had been cleaned off the logo after remaining there for more than a week.

The clean-up came after Hizzoner was blasted for having a “short attention span.”

“It’s been a full week and I asked the cops why the DOT hasn’t repaired the BLM paint job,” Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa told The Post. “They said City Hall doesn’t seem to care any longer about this BLM logo. The mayor seems to have ADD on this matter, like he does most matters in NYC.”

A police source told The Post that the mayor “wavers on the flavor of the month.”

“Whatever the flavor of the month is, that’s what he concerns himself with,” the source said. “That’s what makes him a horrible mayor. Black Lives Matter isn’t the flavor of the month anymore. Very short attention span, we know that already. It’s just a waste of taxpayer dollars in the first place. You got between five and 15 cops sitting out there on overtime watching that stupid s–t and shootings are piling up. They’re there to protect the mural, and obviously they’re not doing a good job of that.”

Earlier Monday, de Blasio’s office blamed inclement weather on Friday for the delay in removing the paint and said the city’s Department of Transportation should be out cleaning it.

He did not immediately explain why the paint wasn’t removed earlier last week, besides to say that “they were doing some similar work out in Queens on Thursday.”

On that day, de Blasio rolled up his sleeves to help paint the movement’s slogan on Jamaica Avenue near 150th Street in Queens.

“As a practical matter this work is getting done as quickly as we can do it,” he said.

But Matthew Martin, 30, a project manager living in Midtown, called it “pretty disappointing” that the city would leave the mural in a defaced state for so long, “considering this is probably the most notable Black Lives Matter mural in the country.”
see also
Nonprofit sues de Blasio for allowing BLM mural — but blocking others

“I mean I get that a–holes are going to keep trying to deface it again and again, because there are always people out there looking to destroy a positive message,” he added.

“But you’d think the mayor, given his politics and his purported dedication to black lives and to progressivism in general, would make it a priority to get this cleaned up first thing. Leaving it like this for a week is pretty pathetic, honestly, and is a pretty good indicator of the kind of leader the mayor is.”

William Hao, 27, was also shocked when told that the vandal struck a week ago.

“How can they leave it looking like this?” he asked. “So many eyes are on this mural every day. It’s a disgrace to leave it in this condition. If the mayor makes a whole event out of helping to paint the mural in the first place, he has to make sure it stays in good condition.”

“He’s known for being an ideologue more than a pragmatist, and this is the perfect example,” Hao added. “He’ll make the big symbolic gesture, but not follow through when it counts. And it’s sad because as long as it looks like this, the message belongs to the opposition, not BLM.”

De Blasio’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/08/11/de-blasio-denies-nypd-slowdown-falsely-claims-arrests-are-up/

Mayor de Blasio denies NYPD slowdown, falsely claims arrests are up
By Nolan Hicks, Craig McCarthy and Natalie Musumeci
August 11, 2020 | 12:58pm | Updated

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday denied there is an NYPD slowdown, instead touting a “consistent increase” in arrests — despite department stats showing that arrests are down, along with the issuance of traffic tickets.

When asked about the apparent foot-dragging by The Post during a City Hall press briefing, de Blasio replied, “I respect the question, but I think some of this information is very selective.”

“There’s no question in my mind that after everything, the perfect storm everyone went through in this city after so many cops were out sick, after all the dislocations, the criminal justice system not working — everything — that you are now seeing a consistent increase in the number of arrests, particularly gun arrests, more and more activity to address where we’re having problems in some communities with violence,” Hizzoner claimed, referring in part to the coronavirus crisis.

“I don’t doubt for a moment that things are swinging back the other way very quickly,” de Blasio said.

The latest NYPD data shows, though, cops have made nearly 10,000 fewer arrests over the last month — a 56 percent dip compared to last year. For the year, arrests are down almost 40 percent.

And collars for firearms haven’t outpaced 2019 numbers since the last week in May.

Gun arrests are down 8.1 percent overall for this year — with 1,899 busts versus 2,066 during the same period last year.

From Aug. 3 through Sunday, the department recorded 62 gun arrests compared to 86 during the same time frame last year, stats released Monday show.

The week prior, police made 54 gun arrests compared to 59 the year before — which is the first week since mid-June the NYPD came close to 2019 numbers.

In June, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea disbanded the anti-crime unit, which was tasked with getting guns off the street. Despite the dip, Shea has repeatedly claimed that dissolving the unit has had no effect on arrest numbers.

De Blasio has continually but erroneously blamed a coronavirus-induced partial court shutdown for the wave of gun violence that has rocked the city in recent weeks — though NYPD data does not support that conclusion.

Asked Tuesday how the court closures explain the dramatic declines in NYPD traffic tickets issued, the mayor reasoned in circles that “A perfect storm is a perfect storm.”

“We’ve had so much dislocation in the NYPD and every city agency, we’ve had so much shifting around that we had to do as a result,” he said.

De Blasio continued, “A huge number of changes have been made in the last weeks, even, redeploying officers to other duties. Obviously, we didn’t have the April recruit class, we didn’t have the June class, there’s a lot of adjustments that have had to be made.”

“But what is clear is the adjustments have been made and are putting the energy, putting the officers where the need is greatest, which is fighting the gun violence and more and more, of course, doing that with community members and community organizations,” the mayor said.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2020/08/20/de-blasio-donor-scored-120m-in-covid-19-contracts-board-seats/

De Blasio donor scored $120M in city COVID-19 contracts, board seats
By Julia Marsh and Nolan Hicks
August 20, 2020 | 5:58pm | Updated

Give to Bill and ye shall receive.

A big-bucks donor to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s political campaigns not only scored $120 million in no-bid coronavirus contracts — he also won seats on two influential city boards.

Manhattan resident Charles Tebele, who owns the New Jersey-based computer business Digital Gadgets, has showered Hizzoner with at least $22,750 in political contributions since 2016 including $12,800 to de Blasio’s failed 2020 presidential bid, records show.

Those contributions to de Blasio were Tebele’s first to a federally regulated campaign since he gave to 2012 Connecticut congressional candidate, Dan Roberti, who lost the Democratic primary that year.

The technology entrepreneur garnered his first city contract through an emergency, no-bid procurement system set up by the mayor during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The $19.8 million deal for N95 masks and surgical face coverings was made in March — a week before the mayor appointed Tebele to the board of the city Economic Development Corporation.

The EDC is a powerful public-private corporation that secured $2 billion in contracts from the city’s Department of Small Business Services last year and grants subsidies to real estate and other industries for major development projects like the botched bid to lure Amazon to build a headquarters in Long Island City, Queens.

“This raises big and bad questions about pay to play. It smells bad,” said John Kaehny, executive director of the good government group Reinvent Albany.

“The Conflict of Interest Board and the Department of Investigation need to investigate and provide a public determination,” Kaehny added. “It’s sleazy and it has to stop.”

Later in March, Tebele won a second, $8 million contract for more N95 masks and a $91 million deal for respirators and breathing kits that were never delivered because supplies ran out. Tebele was still advanced $9.1 million. Those funds were later used to cover earlier contacts, according to a mayoral spokesman.

Despite the tens of millions in city contracts, Digital Gadgets was approved in late April for a $150,000 to $300,000 loan from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, designed to help small businesses keep workers on their payroll during the pandemic.

At the time of his appointment, Tebele’s $11.5 million E. 61st Street townhouse was under a federal tax lien for a $568,000 debt owed to the IRS, according to city property records. The lien was paid off in July.

Before marketing personal protective gear to the Big Apple and other municipalities, Tebele’s company sold covers for iPads, headphones, video game consoles and other computer-related goods through retailers like Walmart.

Tebele paid the New York-based lobbying firm Kasirer $12,000 to pivot his business and target the head of the city’s Health + Hospitals Corporation Dr. Mitch Katz. He tasked Kasirer with building “relationships in the Covid-19 environment,” raising Digital Gadgets’ “profile” and creating “partnerships,” according to a disclosure report.

In May, de Blasio put Tebele on one of his key COVID-19 recovery panels, the Small Business Sector Advisory Council.

The contracts and board appointment for Tebele came a year after the Department of Investigation determined that de Blasio violated ethics rules by hitting up firms with business before city agencies to donate to a non-profit he controlled, the Campaign for One New York.

The CONY was established to bolster Hizzoner’s political agenda, including touting his housing program and signature pre-kindergarten effort. De Blasio ultimately raised more than $4 million for the group before it was shuttered following a wave of play-to-pay allegations that resulted in a probe by federal prosecutors that nearly got the Mayor indicted.

The news outlet The City first reported the Tebele contracts and appointments Thursday.

Asked to comment on the apparent pay to play, City Hall spokesman Bill Neidhardt said Tebele was elected as a director of the EDC board by members on May 6 following the mayor’s March 18 appointment. “Charles operates a tech-focused company that conducts business locally and internationally, and his guidance in those areas is relevant to EDC’s work,” Neidhardt said.

“All contracts were reviewed in accordance with City and State procurement laws. He satisfied at the time all of our vetting requirements for moving forward in our appointment process,” Neidhardt added.

Tebele provided a statement to The Post through his attorney Harlan Lazarus.

“As a lifelong native New Yorker, Mr. Tebele cares deeply about the future of our City in these difficult times. With that in mind, Mr. Tebele has provided the City with access to a worldwide supply chain, providing the most difficult to get products to the city, at a critical time,” Lazarus said. “In addition, he has given his time and energy to the City by serving on Boards concerning important New York City initiatives.”