America’s cites lurched left in 2019, entrenching a new generation of radical activists in municipal and criminal justice posts, and 2020 looks like more of the same. Nationwide, notes the Manhattan Institute’s Steven Malanga, the Left is “pulling back on enforcement of quality-of-life infractions, ceding public space again to the homeless and drug users, undermining public[…]
Read MoreOne of the most outrageous cover-ups in New York City history went back to court in November. For the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, it was an opportunity not just to right a wrong in a decades-old murder case, but to send a message that the New York City Police Department’s[…]
Read MoreNew York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s withdrawal from the presidential race last week is a lost opportunity. A successful de Blasio effort in the Democratic primaries—his was anything but—could have sparked a necessary national debate over signs of rising disorder in American cities. We haven’t returned to the bad old days of the 1970s and[…]
Read MoreThe national economy is humming along, but in America’s greatest city it feels like the canaries in the coal mine are starting to drop dead. A “progressive†mob so terrified the Amazon behemoth that it abandoned plans to build a giant technology hub in New York and fled, costing the city 25,000 jobs. Murders and domestic assaults,[…]
Read MoreNew York State has opened the door to a war on religious education. New guidelines from the state’s Department of Education are framed as applying to all “religious and independent schools†in New York, but no one is fooled. The changes are aimed right at New York City’s freewheeling Orthodox Jewish seminaries, known as yeshivas. More than[…]
Read MoreThe Christmas season in New York City truly is a wonderful time. Everyone seems caught up in the spirit of giving, even the crooks. This year, Christmas brought a special gift: the denouement of the long-running saga of the mayor, the rat, and the NYPD. Once, in an only-in-New-York moment, the rat and a key[…]
Read MoreLast week, we looked at federal efforts to combat money laundering by changing “beneficial owner†laws for various types of legal shell companies, including limited liability companies, LLCs. New York LLCs have the same transparency problems as other states–the true owners, the “beneficial owners,†are hidden behind corporate curtains. But New York’s campaign-finance laws put a different[…]
Read MoreNew York City has three important ballot measures before the voters tomorrow. Flip your ballot over: the proposals are on the back. Essentially, the three proposals are all about the same thing: the fight against corruption through further democratization of the system. Here are my recommendations. (These are my personal endorsements and have no relation[…]
Read MoreJudicial Watch & the Fight Against Corruption in New York On October 4, I had the pleasure of speaking to the Queens Village Republican Club about Judicial Watch’s fight against corruption in New York. We’ve been fielding requests for copies of the speech ever since, so we’re reprinting an edited version here: Judicial Watch takes[…]
Read MoreNew York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD held a press conference July 10th to announce that crime in the city has gone down. “New York City achieved a reduction of 853 crime reports, or -1.8% year-to-date, compared to the same period in 2017,†the NYPD said, citing the latest figures from its CompStat crime-fighting program.[…]
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