New York has been closing some of its nuclear reactors, and replacing them with fossil fuel
NY’s fossil fuel use soared after Indian Point plant closure. Officials sound the alarm.
By Thomas C. Zambito
July 22, 2022
The 2021 shutdown of the Indian Point nuclear power plant led to near-total dependence on fossil fuels to produce electricity in New York’s energy-hungry downstate region, and surging amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air.
A report issued last month by the New York Independent System Operator, which runs the state’s electric grid, shows that in 2021, 89% of downstate energy came from natural gas and oil, up from 77% the previous year when both of Indian Point’s two reactors were still running.
The newly released figures demonstrate in stark detail just how much work the state will need to do in the coming years if it’s to achieve its ambitious climate-related goals − reducing carbon-producing emissions to zero while clearing the way for renewables like wind and solar power to make a larger contribution to the electric grid.
And they have pro-nuclear advocates urging the state to clear a path to allow nuclear power play a larger role in the state’s energy future.
“If we’re serious about dealing with climate change, then we’re going to need all the tools in the toolbox, which includes nuclear, not just now but in the future,” said Keith Schue, an electrical engineer and a leader of Nuclear New York, a pro-nuclear group allied with James Hansen, a leading climate scientist. “We do believe that closing Indian Point was a mistake. But are we going to continue making mistakes or can we learn from them?”
The shift to greater fossil fuel reliance comes as little surprise.
A 2017 NYISO study predicted the 2,000 megawatts of power lost when Indian Point closed would be picked up by three new natural gas plants – in Dover Plains, Wawayanda and Bayonne, N.J. One megawatt powers between 800 and 1,000 homes.
And Indian Point’s former owner, Louisiana-based Entergy, noted that the year after its Vermont Yankee plant shut down in 2014, natural gas-fired generation jumped 12 percent, just as it has since the Buchanan plant closed. The first of Indian Point’s two working reactors shut down in April 2020, followed by the second in April 2021.
With Indian Point eliminated from the energy mix, it has become even harder to wean a downstate region that includes New York City off fossil fuels.
Why did the plant close?
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration brokered the 2017 deal with Entergy that led to Indian Point’s shutdown, with Cuomo citing fears of a nuclear mishap at a power plant located some 35 miles from New York City. He chose to keep open three upstate nuclear plants – two on Lake Ontario and another near Rochester − by arranging for some $7.6 billion in subsidies over 12 years.
But the agreement that shuttered Indian Point came when natural gas was cheap. Entergy cited competition from natural gas in the energy market as the prime mover behind its decision to close a plant that had generated electricity for Westchester County and New York City for six decades.
Today, with natural gas prices surging, electricity is not so cheap.
“We got used to having historically cheap natural gas in the United States,” said Madison Hilly, the founder and executive director of the Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal in Chicago. “So places that shut down their nuclear plants, even if they were replaced with gas, consumers really didn’t feel that in their pocketbooks. Now the era of nonprofit natural gas − as I call it − seems to be over. It’s really expensive.”
In 2021, the average wholesale price of electricity in New York was $47.59 per megawatt hour last year, nearly double what it was the previous year. NYISO’s independent monitor credited the increase in wholesale electric prices to the Indian Point shutdown, the NYISO report said.
California, which is pursuing a slate of clean energy goals like New York’s, appears to be rethinking its decision to do away with nuclear power.
In May, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would support keeping the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant open beyond its planned 2025 closure to ensure the reliability of the state’s electric grid. Researchers from Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have concluded keeping the plant open for another ten years could limit carbon emissions and save the state $2.6 billion in power costs.
Hilly has teamed with Nuclear New York, a coalition of scientists, engineers and labor and management from the nuclear industry, to urge the state to give nuclear power a larger role in the state’s energy mix. In April, Hansen, a former NASA scientist who was among the first to identify the consequences from climate change, appeared at an Albany press conference to urge the state to include nuclear in a plan being drafted for the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
“We’re trying to prevent the situation from getting that bad – that reality that forces politicians to eat crow,” Hilly said. “Eventually, if we keep going down this path, ratepayers and voters are not going to tolerate it and politicians will quickly have to get on board or get out.”
A spokesman for Gov. Kathy Hochul said the state is forging ahead with its twin goals of having 70% of the state’s electric demand met by renewables by 2030 and 100% zero emissions by 2040.
“These goals, which are being met through solar, wind, and hydroelectricity along with the continued use of the state’s three existing upstate nuclear plants, were developed to reduce emissions from fossil fuels, combat the dangerous impacts of climate change and benefit New Yorkers by reducing volatility in electricity pricing,” spokesman Leo Rosales said. “Planning for these goals took into account the necessary closure of Indian Point following dozens of safety and operational hazards and in no way jeopardizes New York’s clean energy goals or the reliability of the state’s electric grid.”
Transmission:Power lines will bring wind and solar energy from upstate but will it be enough to help NY achieve green energy goals?
NY’s electric grid under siege
Increased energy costs are only part of the problem.
NYISO’s June “Power Trends” report offers a sobering assessment of grid reliability in the years ahead.
The amount of energy resources the state can access each day is decreasing, and that trend is expected to worsen in the years to come as the demand for electricity surges. Electricity needed to charge cars and heat buildings will shift peak usage to the winter instead of summer, which typically sees the highest energy usage as air conditioners run around the clock.
Adding to the problem are environmental regulations that will impact the output of the state’s peaker plants, fossil-fuel generated plants that take their name from delivering energy at times of peak demand. Roughly half of the 3,300 megawatts these plants generate in the lower Hudson Valley, Long Island and New York City will be unavailable during the summer of 2025, NYISO notes.
“The margins that we see on our system are shrinking,” NYISO president and chief executive officer Rich Dewey told reporters at a media briefing last month.
The grid is in perhaps the most transformative moment in its history.
Older generating plants are being shut down while the state introduces a slate of renewable energy projects – offshore wind on Long Island, wind power upstate, batteries to store solar energy.
A network of transmission lines stretching from western New York to New York City is currently under construction, part of an effort to remove a bottleneck that kept clean energy stuck north of Albany. Upstate’s energy mix is decidedly cleaner than downstate’s. Upstate, three nuclear power plants and hydropower from the Robert Moses Niagara Hydroelectric Power Station contribute to a 91% carbon-free energy grid.
There are also plans to deliver hydropower to New York City from Canada by way of 340 miles of underground cable that will run in the Hudson River. Another 174-mile transmission line will bring upstate wind down to Queens along upstate rights-of-way.
But it will be years before these projects are up and running.
The NYISO report anticipates a 10% gap in the amount of renewable power that will be available on an as-needed basis in the winter of 2040.
“We’ve identified there is a need for dispatchable, emissions-free resources,” Dewey said. “That technology does not yet exist and there’s a gap that needs to be closed. We’re only going to get so far with wind, solar and storage, due to the intermittent nature of those resources.”
And by next year, a heatwave with an average temperate of 95 degrees may result in thin margins and “significant deficiencies,” NYISO says.
A 98-degree heatwave would test the system’s limits today and exceed grid capabilities next year, the report adds.
“We’re taking on a little bit more risk in our ability to manage unplanned, unforeseen events on the power system, or potentially severe weather events,” Dewey added.
NYISO isn’t alone in its concerns about grid reliability. The state’s utilities have been raising their concerns.
A group representing most of the state’s major utilities recently studied energy production for the month of January, an especially cold month and the first winter when Indian Point wasn’t producing power. The plant’s Unit 2 shut down in 2020 and Unit 3 the following year.
Wind and other renewables contributed 5% of total generation. There was less wind and less solar generation due to shorter daylight hours and heavy cloud cover.
“Today’s renewable resources are emissions-free, but their output is weather-dependent,” the Utility Consultation Group analysis says. “This intermittency and the need for electric supply to meet customer energy demand every hour of the day may result in reliability issues if not proactively addressed.”
The group represents Central Hudson, ConEdison, Rochester, Niagara Mohawk, NYSEG and Orange and Rockland utilities.
‘Closing Indian Point was a mistake’
Critics of the deal that led to Indian Point’s closure question why the plant couldn’t remain open while the state pursued a renewable buildout.
“Maybe someday renewables could be a big factor in the energy market,” said Theresa Knickerbocker, the mayor of the lower Hudson Valley village of Buchanan, home to Indian Point. “But, right now, two gas plants were opened up to compensate for the loss of Indian Point, which has zero carbon emissions. It’s kind of hypocritical, right?”
Buchanan faces the loss of some $3.5 million in property taxes that Entergy paid the village while the reactors were still operating.
Business groups fear the thinner energy surplus could impact a factory’s ability to deliver goods on time, while driving away companies that are considering relocating.
“The renewable buildout is a multi-decade process,” said Ken Pokalsky, the vice president of the Business Council of New York. “It’s probably going slower than we would like. Every one of these project is complicated…It would be safe to say it’s moving forward. But fast enough is a subjective evaluation.”
Nuclear New York wants the state to work with the federal government to encourage and develop new nuclear reactors, which don’t produce the nuclear waste that older generation reactors do.
This week, Entergy announced it was partnering with Holtec, the New Jersey company that is tearing down Indian Point, in a deal to build small nuclear reactors. Their plan envisions building one of the first reactors at Oyster Creek, a shutdown nuclear power plant in New Jersey.
And the nuclear group wants New York to continue the subsidies that have allowed the three upstate nuclear power plants to continue beyond 2029.
Schue said other nations have been adopting the next generation of nuclear energy generation into the mix. “We’d like to change that,” Schue said. “We’d like to see New York step up to the plate. We’ve got the skills. We’ve got the spirit of innovation, we have the manpower.”
Applebee’s diner stops knife-wielding attacker after worker slashed in face, NY cops say
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article271240282.html
Applebee’s diner stops knife-wielding attacker after worker slashed in face, NY cops say
By Julia Marnin
January 16, 2023
A man dining at Applebee’s watched another man grab a steak knife and start swinging the weapon — so he leapt into action, authorities in New York say.
After the knife-wielding attacker slashed one worker in the face while fighting several staff members, the man eating dinner pulled out a handgun at the New Hartford restaurant the evening of Jan. 14, a police news release said.
The diner, with his gun drawn, ordered Esteban F. Padron, 28, to drop the knife and get on the ground, according to police.
Padron listened to the commands and stayed on the ground until New Hartford police officers arrived at the Applebee’s to arrest him after being called to the restaurant around 6:45 p.m., they said.
Padron is facing charges including second-degree attempted assault, two counts of third-degree assault and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, according to the release.
Police said the incident unfolded when Padron walked into the Applebee’s that evening and workers asked him to leave because he previously acted “disorderly” at the same location and was similarly ordered to leave, according to authorities.
While being escorted out by staff, Padron ran behind the bar and grabbed the steak knife before fighting the workers, police said. In addition to the worker who was cut in the face, another Applebee’s employee received a non-life threatening injury as a result of the attack, according to police. The diner who stopped the attack had a license for the firearm, the release said. Padron was taken to a nearby hospital for a mental health investigation, according to police. Authorities said the investigation continues and additional charges could be filed. New Hartford is about 100 miles northwest of Albany.
New York continues to dumb down its educational curriculum
In this previous blog post, I quoted this excerpt from an article that the New York Times had published on March 13, 2017:
“The Board of Regents on Monday eliminated a requirement that aspiring teachers in New York State pass a literacy test to become certified after the test proved controversial because black and Hispanic candidates passed it at significantly lower rates than white candidates.”
So that happened six years ago.
Now here’s a new article about how New York has dumbed down its educational curriculum even further.
New York wants its citizens to be dumb, ignorant, stupid, and uneducated:
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/new-york-lowers-bar-student-math-english-17841120.php
NYS changes minimum scores for student proficiency in math, English
Committee tells Board of Regent the lower scores are the “new normal”
By Kathleen Moore
March 16, 2023
ALBANY — New York will change what it takes for students to reach “proficiency” on state math and English language arts tests, calling last year’s lower scores the “new normal.”
A scoring committee that reports to the Board of Regents said Monday that they must take into account the results of last year’s tests for students in grades three through eight to determine whether schools are showing improvement from year to year. On Thursday, the committee wanted to clarify that they must also reset scores because the tests will have new performance standards.
Last year some schools posted shocking results — in Schenectady, no eighth grader who took the math test scored as proficient. And the scores for the third through eighth grade tests throughout the state were much lower in 2022 than in 2019, a result no doubt of the absence of in-person learning during the first year and beyond of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The committee handles all scoring methodology, not just this year’s changes.
In setting the lowest score a student can get to reach each achievement level, teachers on the committee consider what content a student must know, the committee told the Board of Regents.
They reorganize the tests, ranking every question from easiest to hardest based on the percent of students who got it right. Then they decide how far into the test the student had to get, in terms of correct answers, to be rated a level 3, which means they are proficient.
“How much third-grade math is just enough for me to put you in proficiency,” said Technical Advisory Committee Co-Chair Marianne Perie, explaining that they decide what is borderline but “good enough.”
Then the committee considers how many students won’t reach proficiency if they set the score at that point.
That’s where last year’s scores matter.
“Yes, there’s learning loss between 2019 and 2022, but in some ways we don’t want to keep going backwards,” Perie said. “We’re at this new normal. So for New York we are saying the new baseline is 2022.”
The committee is resetting the lowest scores — called cut scores — for each achievement level on this spring’s new ELA (English language arts) and math tests.
“Right now we’re setting new cut scores for 2023. This is the baseline moving forward,” Perie said.
Over the summer the committee will do the same for the U.S. history Regents exam, with the change taking effect in 2024.
Some teachers have been pressing for tests to be “re-normed” so that students can pass at a lower level than in previous years, reflecting their learning loss.
But the executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education said the whole idea of changing the minimum score needed to be considered proficient diminishes people’s confidence in the tests.
“I think that just speaks to the politics of test scores and why so many families have been joining the opt-out movement,” Executive Director Jasmine Gripper said in an interview Wednesday.
Parents are realizing “that test scores aren’t a true reflection of learning,” she said, adding that changing minimum standards is nothing new. When she was a teacher, educators would encounter students who were rated as proficient but were not truly proficient, she said.
Board of Regents Chancellor Lester Young Jr. spoke in favor of the tests, describing a meeting years ago in which parents were shocked that their eighth graders didn’t qualify for certain high schools based on the school entrance exams, even though teachers had given the students good grades for years. He called that “unconscionable.”
Gripper agreed that parents should be told if their students are struggling, but said the state testing comes with big consequences: Schools with poor scores can be labeled as failing and placed in receivership.
“It destabilizes the school,” she said. “The most senior staff tend to leave with their expertise.”
Board of Regents member Frances Wills also questioned the tests, saying public confidence in education has declined since state testing for students in third through eighth grades began.
“In my perspective, we’re still wrestling with that: public perception of what the standardized test means,” she said.
She suggested adaptive tests, which offer easier or harder questions based on what the student gets right, as well as alternatives to testing.
“So you don’t put a test in front of a student and completely demoralize them,” she said, adding, “We’re looking at new ways to measure what students know. The idea that there’s more to a student than that standardized test.”
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr: “This is not Oregon. We are not Washington or New York or California. We’re Georgia. Do not come to our state and engage in violence against our citizens, against our law enforcement or break our laws. It will not be tolerated. You will be charged, and we will not stop until we make sure that everybody that’s been a part of this has been held accountable.”
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
January 25, 2023
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr recently said the following:
“This is not Oregon. We are not Washington or New York or California. We’re Georgia. Do not come to our state and engage in violence against our citizens, against our law enforcement or break our laws. It will not be tolerated. You will be charged, and we will not stop until we make sure that everybody that’s been a part of this has been held accountable.”
CNN recently published this article, which is titled, “7 charged with domestic terrorism after deadly shooting near proposed Atlanta police training facility.”
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Every city has exactly as much crime as it’s willing to tolerate. The above quote from the Georgia Attorney General is just as much a criticism of those other states as it is of the criminals. I hope all of these criminals are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Kingston, New York, orders landlords to reduce rent by 15%
The city of Kingston, New York, is ordering landlords to reduce their rent by 15%.
Pretty much every economist, even the ones on the left, agree that, in the long run, rent control reduces both the quantity and the quality of rental housing.
Rent control is great for people who already have a rent controlled apartment.
But it’s horrible for people who are looking for an apartment.
The Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck, a housing expert, said that “rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing.”
That being said, as a person who does not live in Kingston, I think this is a great experiment to see what the results will be. Will the results here be the same as in other cities that had rent control? Or will they be different? Contrary to popular belief, it was not actually Einstein who first said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”
Sources:
https://reason.com/2022/11/16/landlords-sue-over-city-mandated-15-percent-rent-cut/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_regulation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_the_United_States
https://www.businessinsider.com/misattributed-quotes-2013-10
More proof that New York is pro-crime
How Did a Two-Time Killer Get Out to Be Charged Again at Age 83?
Marceline Harvey is accused of dismembering a woman in Brooklyn. Her life was defined by a tormented relationship with women and herself — and a simmering anger.
By Rebecca Davis O’Brien and Ali Watkins
July 30, 2022
The person before the parole panel in June 2019 was tall and slim, in far better shape than 81 years of life might have suggested. Mild and polite, the supplicant seemed nothing like the murderer who had spent decades in prison, first for shooting a girlfriend dead in 1963, and then for stabbing another in 1985, stuffing her corpse into a bag and leaving it in Central Park.
“I’m no longer that person,” the inmate told the parole board commissioners. Despite misgivings, they would rule in favor of release.
Two and a half years after leaving Cayuga Correctional Facility, Marceline Harvey was accused again, charged with killing Susan Leyden, 68. Parts of Ms. Leyden’s body were found in March inside a shopping cart in East New York, stuffed in a bag. In Ms. Harvey’s apartment, investigators found a bloody mop, a tub full of towels and a box for an electric saw.
For seven decades leading up to her latest arrest, Ms. Harvey navigated New York’s intricate criminal justice bureaucracy: the country’s largest police apparatus, the state’s overlapping welfare agencies, its prisons and the officials charged with deciding who remains in them. She confronted the system in some moments, manipulated it in others. Behind her was a trail of crimes so grisly that for decades, parole officials refused to let her out.
Now Ms. Harvey has pleaded not guilty to murder. Ms. Harvey’s lawyer at the Brooklyn Public Defenders’ office declined to comment on her case. Ms. Harvey, who is being held at Rikers, could not be reached for comment; she declined an interview request.
Decades worth of police documents and court records detail the life of Ms. Harvey, a transgender woman who transitioned at some point after her release from prison. Central to her tale are more than three decades of parole board minutes obtained through the state’s Freedom of Information Law. In them, she insists that authorities exaggerated evidence, changes stories about crimes she admitted and veers between contrition and blaming those she killed.
The records include several examples of her harassing or attacking women throughout her life. She was accused of attempted rape at 14; the victim was an 8-year-old girl. Ms. Harvey, who by her own account struggled with her mental health, said she had to choke down rage when women challenged her manliness before she transitioned — making fun of her soft voice, for example.
A homeless shelter worker and people close to Ms. Leyden questioned whether, despite her gender identity, Ms. Harvey should have been placed in a homeless shelter for women, given her history of attacking and murdering them. Speaking from Rikers to The New York Post, Ms. Harvey referred to herself as having two personas: one, a violent male named Harvey Marcelin — the name she used for most of her life and is included in court records — and the other, a soft-spoken woman named Marceline Harvey.
But transgender people are far more likely to become victims of violence, not perpetrators, and data from the National Center for Transgender Equality suggests more than half of transgender people who stay in shelters encounter harassment.
And the crucial question surrounding Ms. Harvey’s case is less complicated: How was someone who had killed twice before allowed the chance to kill again?
“Anger doesn’t dissolve at 84,” said Dr. Katherine Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University in Pennsylvania. “It wouldn’t surprise me that a person who killed earlier — even 50, 60 years earlier — out of anger, would feel the same compulsion.”
Even so, a spokesman for the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said Ms. Harvey met the criteria for release. Ms. Harvey had completed therapy and coursework, and had letters of support from organizations that work with released offenders, the parole records show. The prison system had deemed her unlikely to commit a violent offense.
Krystal Rodriguez, policy director for the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the crime of which Ms. Harvey is accused was so bizarre that parole board officials would be unlikely to foresee it.
“Someone committing such a tragic and violent crime at this age is so incredibly rare that it would be very difficult for anyone reviewing this case to even consider,” Ms. Rodriguez said.
A Propensity for Violence
Born in 1938, Ms. Harvey spent her youth in New York, the child of a single mother. Even as a teenager, she displayed a propensity for violence, particularly toward women, and had a complicated gender identity. According to court records and parole board minutes, Ms. Harvey was treated at Catholic Charities, which paired clergy and laypeople with troubled children, after the attempted rape at 14.
As a young adult, Ms. Harvey — described then as a tall, slender man — lived with her mother and earned $75 a week operating copy machines. She had a girlfriend, Jacqueline Bonds, but her life was chaotic: Ms. Harvey drank often, took cocaine, regularly assaulted Ms. Bonds and was in and out of psychiatric care.
In early 1963, Ms. Harvey was again accused of rape, this time as a 24-year-old. (The allegations are referred to by a parole official in a hearing minutes, which offer no further details.)
The accusation set off a spasm of violence: That April, Ms. Harvey killed Ms. Bonds, who had been scheduled to appear before a grand jury considering the case. Ms. Harvey shot her point blank in their crowded Manhattan apartment, chased her as she staggered through the kitchen and living room, and shot her twice more before she collapsed, according to board minutes and a police report.
She was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life.
During two decades behind bars, she repeatedly appealed her conviction in state and federal courts, and tried to persuade the parole board to free her. Skeptical officials as far back as 1984 cited her aggression toward women. Even in prison, one noted, Ms. Harvey had sent inappropriate letters to candy-striper hospital volunteers.
“That is all in the past, and when I became aware that this pattern was creating, I cut it loose,” Ms. Harvey said.
Weeks later, the board freed Ms. Harvey and she returned to New York.
Shopping Carts and Bloody Garbage Bags
In the early morning hours of Oct. 30, 1985, Roberto Romano was in the lobby of the Cambridge Residence Hotel in Harlem where he lived. He was “smoking reefer,” as he later told police officers, when the tenant of room 602 passed, pushing a shopping cart that held a garbage bag.
“The bag ripped on the first step and blood came out,” Mr. Romano told the police, according to investigative reports.
Hours later, a man walking on Manhattan’s Upper West Side saw a dark plastic bag at the entrance to Central Park at 106th Street, dripping blood. He tore it open, revealing a pair of bound legs.
The victim, identified as Ana Laura Sierra in police records, had been stabbed repeatedly, tied up with a rope, and wrapped in plastic. At 29, she had a heroin habit, according to parole board reports, and several prostitution arrests. Police investigators noticed a pattern: She frequented certain addresses, including room 602 at the Cambridge Residence Hotel.
The address belonged to Ms. Harvey.
At the time, Ms. Harvey was unmoored. She had no stable job, was caught up in street life and wanted to be a pimp, she later told parole officials. Ms. Harvey and Ms. Sierra occasionally lived together.
“She was very fiery and provocative,” Ms. Harvey later told parole officials. Ms. Sierra, she said, brought “johns and tricks to the apartment,” and sold Ms. Harvey’s flute for drugs.
Court records suggest Ms. Sierra was stabbed over 30 times, but Ms. Harvey disputed that in her parole board meetings, according to the transcripts. “Some of those were puncture wounds from rats and squirrels,” Ms. Harvey said, noting the body had sat in the park for hours.
Charged with first-degree murder, Ms. Harvey struck a plea bargain with the Manhattan district attorney’s office for first-degree manslaughter and was returned to prison in 1986.
For 35 years and across 15 hearings, parole officials denied Ms. Harvey freedom. But in June 2019, as she entered her ninth decade, she appeared by video before a two-commissioner panel, Otis Cruse and Joseph Crangle.
Mr. Cruse — a former parole officer who joined the board in 2015 — noted Ms. Harvey’s lengthy history of wrongdoing. Ms. Harvey said she had no family to guide her, and that drug and alcohol abuse contributed.
“Many of those who we speak to lack the guidance that they wish they have had in their youth,” Mr. Cruse said, “but very few of them have replicated a criminal history that’s as graphic as yours has been.”
Still, the commissioners noted that internal assessments indicated a low risk for felony violence or arrest.
“I give you my word,” Ms. Harvey told the board members. “I will never reoffend.”
They approved her release.
Mr. Crangle did not respond to a request for comment; Mr. Cruse deferred to the Department of Corrections. Asked whether the commissioners stood by their decision, Thomas Mailey, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, said the transcripts speak for themselves.
On Aug. 7, 2019, Ms. Harvey left prison and reported to her parole officer.
‘Love Personified’
That December, an update popped up on a Facebook page belonging to a Marceline Harvey. It had the caption “Love personified.” It was a picture of Susan Leyden.
Born in 1953, Ms. Leyden had spent most of her life in northern New Jersey. A divorced mother of one daughter, she had run her own jewelry business for years, according to one person close to her.
But facing a downturn, Ms. Leyden decided around a decade ago to relocate to the city, looking to live closer to friends and move around more easily with public transit. It was an affirmative step after a lifetime of loss — her father, two brothers and sister had died, and her marriage had unraveled. She first lived in Queens, and later moved to Brooklyn, where she landed in a supportive housing community for seniors in Fort Greene
It is unclear where her path first crossed Ms. Harvey’s, but at the time Ms. Harvey posted about Ms. Leyden, she was seeking her own placement in city shelters. Immediately after her 2019 release, she sought housing in the Bronx.
Ms. Harvey “presented as a mild spoken, very tall Black man,” said Anne Brennan, the nurse who ran the intake. “I said, ‘Well, why are you in the women’s shelter?’”
Ms. Brennan said she told Ms. Harvey that placing her in a women’s shelter seemed like a bad idea, given her history of killing women. Despite her objections, Ms. Brennan said her supervisors allowed Ms. Harvey entry.
“Apparently his feelings and identity were far more important than all the other women that were terrified of him,” she said.
Julia Savel, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Social Services, said rules were followed.
“Our policy — in accordance with the law — is to place individuals in shelters based on their reported gender identity,” she said. “Being homeless or transgender does not make you inherently violent and are not connected to the crime that was committed.”
Though Ms. Harvey continued to post about Ms. Leyden on social media pages, Ms. Leyden’s friends never knew of Ms. Harvey, and Ms. Leyden never discussed her.
On Feb. 27, according to the police, video showed Ms. Leyden entering Ms. Harvey’s building in East New York.
On March 3 — two and a half years after Ms. Harvey posted the first photo of Ms. Leyden — the New York Police Department got a grisly 911 call: There was a shopping cart outside a pawnshop in a mostly industrial section of East New York. Inside, a bag contained a woman’s torso. It was Ms. Leyden’s.
Video shows men on New York subway doing nothing as thug assaults woman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44-IpvZRfAw
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/06/where_are_all_the_men.html
Where are all the men?
By Breason Jacak
June 1, 2022
On May 28, Sky News Australia posted a video titled “New York bearing signs of ‘societal decay.'” The video shows a man (who seems as if he is on drugs) entering a train car and sitting next to a young woman. He then touches her without consent, grabs her, drags her around a bit, and generally is an extremely unpleasant nuisance. He eventually leaves her alone and proceeds to try to kick out one of the windows.
During the video, the young woman is seen looking at other passengers, with obvious worry in her eyes, begging somebody to please “help me.” Nobody tries to help her. The news anchor, Rita Panahi, asks the question, “Where are the men?”
If I had to guess, they were standing in their place, checking their male privilege, toning down their toxic masculinity, and coping with how their Time’s Up. Perhaps the men wanted a demonstration of how women are actually the stronger sex. Perhaps the threat level just did not seem that high to them; New York has a duty to retreat, after all. Besides, New York has been in the habit of arresting those who defend themselves.
Most likely, the men who were on the train did not care about this woman. They did not know her and were not likely to ever get to know her. How could it be worth it for these men to possibly be killed or maimed (it is unknown if the aggressor had a knife) for the sake of someone who may as well not exist to them?
Then again, let us give these men the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they probably did want to help this woman. Watching the video, you might notice something about the aggressor. My guess is that none of the men watching wanted to become the next George Zimmerman. We all saw the emotional toll Kyle Rittenhouse suffered for defending himself. (Yes, the media vilified him for having an emotional testimony.)
The anchor refers to the men on the train as cowards, but I think that might be a bit unfair. Quite simply, Western society does not trust people who defend themselves or others. In 2016, a 17-year-old Danish girl was arrested for defending herself with pepper spray from a would-be-rapist. In 2020, a Virginia store clerk was arrested for defending his store from robbers. Even an elderly U.K. pensioner was arrested for “stabbing a burglar to death.” It is entirely possible that those men had such cases in mind.
In the armed defense community, there is a common phrase: “better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.” In most cases, this is true; it is better to be alive to face trial than to be dead. But is it better to be condemned by society than to let a crime happen to another person? How difficult is it to imagine anyone who may have intervened being decried as racist?
I can see the headlines maligning any actions taken as being racially motivated or entirely aggressive. Let us not forget the videos posted without context of the Covington kids, or how Darren Wilson maliciously killed an unarmed teenager. Perhaps the media would issue corrections for the “mistakes” made in the reports, but no doubt the names, faces, and workplaces of those involved would have already been exposed.
Miss Panahi was definitely right about one thing: society is declining. The signs are legion and everywhere, but it is not necessary to get into that here. I just want to make the case that cowardice may not have been the only reason that no men acted that day, especially considering the society that fostered these men.
Poll: What do you think of the New York State Board of Regents eliminating the requirement for new teachers to pass a literacy test?
The New York Times wrote:
“The Board of Regents on Monday eliminated a requirement that aspiring teachers in New York State pass a literacy test to become certified after the test proved controversial because black and Hispanic candidates passed it at significantly lower rates than white candidates.”
The bleeding hearts let another dangerous, violent serial criminal out of jail. Anyone who’s not a bleeding heart can guess what happened next.
Why was Syracuse murder suspect let out of jail week before killing?
March 26, 2021
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The woman accused of killing 93-year-old Connie Tuori at Skyline Apartments in Syracuse had an extensive criminal past, and was released by Judge Felicia Pitts Davis one week before allegedly murdering Tuori.
Over the past year, Victoria Afet was arrested at least 10 times. Her offenses included stabbing, fighting and stealing.
Eight days before Tuori’s murder on Feb. 26, Afet was arrested for armed robbery and attacking a 74-year-old woman at the same apartment building. Court documents say she bit the woman.
“Less than 24 hours later, despite the objections of the Onondaga County DA’s office, Ms. Afet was released with no bail and a week later is alleged to have murdered Connie Tuori,” said Onondaga County District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick said that under bail reform, a judge can set bail for a repeat offender. His office requested bail for $50,000, but Pitts Davis let Afet go without any bail.
Pitts Davis is currently in her first term as a city court judge. She ran as a Democrat and was sworn in on Dec. 27, 2020.
CNYCentral reached out to Pitts Davis to ask why she did not set bail for Afet. We were told by Supervising Judge James Murphy, “Judges are ethically prohibited from publicly commenting on pending cases.”
Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/04/nyregion/cuomo-nursing-home-deaths.html
Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll
The intervention was the earliest action yet known in an effort by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo that concealed how many nursing home residents died in the pandemic.
By J. David Goodman and Danny Hakim
March 4, 2021
Top aides to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo were alarmed: A report written by state health officials had just landed, and it included a count of how many nursing home residents in New York had died in the pandemic.
The number — more than 9,000 by that point in June — was not public, and the governor’s most senior aides wanted to keep it that way. They rewrote the report to take it out, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.
The extraordinary intervention, which came just as Mr. Cuomo was starting to write a book on his pandemic achievements, was the earliest act yet known in what critics have called a monthslong effort by the governor and his aides to obscure the full scope of nursing home deaths.
After the state attorney general revealed earlier this year that thousands of deaths of nursing home residents had been undercounted, Mr. Cuomo finally released the complete data, saying he had withheld it out of concern that the Trump administration might pursue a politically motivated inquiry into the state’s handling of the outbreak in nursing homes.
But Mr. Cuomo and his aides actually began concealing the numbers months earlier, as his aides were battling their own top health officials, and well before requests for data arrived from federal authorities, according to documents and interviews with six people with direct knowledge of the discussions, who requested anonymity to describe the closed-door debates.
The central role played by the governor’s top aides reflected the lengths to which Mr. Cuomo has gone in the middle of a deadly pandemic to control data, brush aside public health expertise and bolster his position as a national leader in the fight against the coronavirus.
As the nursing home report was being written, the New York State Health Department’s data — contained in a chart reviewed by The Times that was included in a draft — put the death toll roughly 50 percent higher than the figure then being cited publicly by the Cuomo administration.
The Health Department worked on the report with McKinsey, a consulting firm hired by Mr. Cuomo to help with the pandemic response. The chart they created compared nursing home deaths in New York with other states. New York’s total of 9,250 deaths far exceeded that of the next-highest state, New Jersey, which had 6,150 at the time.
The changes sought by the governor’s aides fueled bitter exchanges with health officials working on the report. The conflict punctuated an already tense and devolving relationship between Mr. Cuomo and his Health Department, one that would fuel an exodus of the state’s top public health officials.
In the past week, Mr. Cuomo’s once seemingly unshakable grip on power has been buffeted by a wave of scandal. Three women have accused the governor of inappropriate conduct, including workplace sexual harassment. On Wednesday, he publicly apologized for his actions, which are soon to be subjected to an independent investigation overseen by the state attorney general.
The crisis over Mr. Cuomo’s behavior with women came just as his administration had been dealing with political turmoil over nursing homes. Lawmakers moved to strip him of the emergency powers he had been granted during the pandemic, and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have opened a separate investigation.
A lawyer hired to represent Mr. Cuomo and his aides, Elkan Abramowitz, has begun interviewing senior staff members in the governor’s office about the nursing home report, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.
The aides who were involved in changing the report included Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s top aide; Linda Lacewell, the head of the state’s Department of Financial Services; and Jim Malatras, a former top adviser to Mr. Cuomo brought back to work on the pandemic. None had public health expertise.
In response to a detailed list of questions from The Times sent on Tuesday, the governor’s office responded with a statement Thursday night from Beth Garvey, a special counsel, who said “the out-of-facility data was omitted after D.O.H. could not confirm it had been adequately verified.” She added that the additional data did not change the conclusion of the report.
The tension over the death count dated to the early weeks of the pandemic when Mr. Cuomo issued an order preventing nursing homes from turning away people discharged from the hospital after being treated for Covid-19. The order was similar to ones issued in other states aimed at preventing hospitals from becoming overwhelmed.
But by late spring, Republicans were suggesting that the order had caused a deadly spread of the virus in nursing homes. Mr. Cuomo disputed that it had. Still, critics and others seized on the way the state was publicly reporting deaths: Unlike other states, New York excluded residents who had been transferred to hospitals and died there, effectively cloaking how many nursing home residents had died of Covid-19.
The 33-page report, which was issued in July by the state Health Department, found Mr. Cuomo’s policies were not to blame, but it became a turning point in the Albany debate over the governor’s policies.
The day after the report was published, legislators began calling for hearings and requesting complete data. Public health officials criticized its approach. A think tank began seeking the data the next month, as did the Justice Department.
Health officials, nursing home operators and even some of Mr. Cuomo’s aides expressed bafflement at the governor’s apparent insistence on delaying the release of the data for so long, as none of the information released so far has changed the overall number of Covid-19 deaths in New York — now more than 47,000, including more than 15,000 nursing home residents.
But the July report allowed Mr. Cuomo to treat the nursing home issue as resolved last year, paving the way for him to focus on touting New York’s success in controlling the virus.
“I am now thinking about writing a book about what we went through,” Mr. Cuomo said four days after the report’s release, his first public comments about a possible book.
By that point, he was already seeking formal approval from a state ethics agency to earn outside income from book sales, according to a person with knowledge of his planning at the time.
The governor’s policy to direct nursing homes to accept and readmit patients who had tested positive for the coronavirus remains a subject of intense debate. An investigation by the attorney general’s office, released in January, said that Mr. Cuomo’s memo to nursing homes was consistent with federal guidance, but it “may have put residents at increased risk of harm in some facilities.”
Ms. Garvey said in her statement that the governor’s order did not drive nursing home deaths, a conclusion that was also reached in the Health Department report.
At the time when the report was being debated, Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, still enjoyed broad popularity for his televised news briefings.
Dr. Eleanor Adams was the Health Department’s lead on the report, but her draft was substantially rewritten by Mr. Malatras, now the chancellor of the State University of New York system. He was among a number of officials and former advisers temporarily recruited by Mr. Cuomo to assist with the pandemic response.
The back-and-forth went well beyond the usual process of the governor’s office suggesting edits to an agency report, and became “intense” at times, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.
Health officials felt the governor’s office, whose opinion was conveyed by Mr. Malatras, wanted to simplify too much. They worried it was no longer a true scientific report, but feared for their jobs if they did not go along.
Even so, an edited version prepared by Mr. Malatras did not remove the higher death toll.
That occurred later, after Ms. DeRosa and Ms. Lacewell became aware of its inclusion. It was taken out soon after.
In a very close New York race, they “found” a bunch of ballots nearly one month after the election
Ballots ‘Found’ in NY-22 Race, Probably Will Help the Democrat
December 1, 2020
A few days ago, I penned a piece detailing a little talked about House race in New York. NY-22 was a battle between Republican Claudia Tenney and Democrat Anthony Brindisi. (UPDATE: That piece received an amendment after this article published. Tenney’s comms director reached out. She is apparently still up 12 votes per their information and the judge has not made a final determination on the disputed ballots).
Now, a batch of “found” ballots has been revealed, this time from Chenago County.
You will be less than shocked to learn that these votes could break 65% or so for Brindisi given the previous voting patterns of the county. That could flip the race, though the sample size is so small at only 44 ballots that anything is possible. The judge also has to determine whether to count them at all.
This is not a good look for New York. Finding ballots almost a month after the election? How is anyone supposed to have faith in an election system that operates this way? It’s also worth noting that Democrat states continue to have this happen, perhaps not by mere chance. New York still has some precincts with only 60% reporting. Again, it’s been almost a month since the election. Now there’s a sketchy batch of “found” ballots being thrown into the mix. Expecting people to believe all of this is innocent is going to be a tough lift.
I really hope Tenney has some legal recourse here to ensure only valid votes are counted, though I have my doubts the courts in New York will be of much help. Regardless, there is no excuse for any state to still be counting votes right now. There’s certainly no excuse to be accepting ballots this far after election day. People have to be able to trust that there’s a fair system in place that operates by the book. This is not by the book. New York is already a very troubled state for a variety of reasons. Having an election system that produces this kind of chaos and possible corruption only makes things worse.
I’ll end by noting that you never see this kind of stuff favoring a Republican. When is the last time you saw a “found” batch of votes come in weeks later that just so happen to help the Republican? Yet, we see that happen every election in some race involving a Democrat ultimately coming out victorious. It’s a joke.
New York arrests 80 people for not wearing masks at their sex party
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nyc-sheriffs-broke-sex-party-173500731.html
NYC sheriffs broke up a sex party with 80 people, a room full of mattresses, and boxes of condoms
November 23, 2020
The New York City Sheriff’s Department broke up a sex party in Astoria, Queens on Sunday at 2 AM.
There were over 80 mask-less attendees at Caligula, a self-described swingers club, violating New York state COVID-19-regulations.
Two party organizers and an attendee were charged with multiple misdemeanors for breaking COVID-19 regulations and selling alcohol without a liquor license.
The party comes days after New York City Schools closed indefinitely due to rising COVID-19 rates.
New York’s mail-vote disaster: Almost a month after the election, nobody knows who won.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-mail-vote-disaster-11595286912
New York’s Mail-Vote Disaster
Almost a month after the election, nobody knows who won.
July 20, 2020
After primary night in New York, June 23, Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney held a 648 vote lead over progressive challenger Suraj Patel. Almost a month later the winner in the 12th District, which covers eastern Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and Queens, remains unknown. It’s a dark omen for November.
The preliminary count included about 40,000 votes, but not 65,000 absentee ballots. If mail votes were postmarked by Election Day, they could arrive June 30 and still be considered valid. Counting was put on hold until that deadline passed, but it didn’t begin until July 8 due to an “unprecedented volume” of mail, as a city official put it.
Meantime, Mr. Patel went on MSNBC and charged that “voter suppression is a real thing,” even inside the Democratic Party. Ms. Maloney called this attack “a cynical abuse of voter confidence” that “comes straight out of Donald Trump’s playbook.” Mr. Patel is party to a federal lawsuit filed Friday that argues “an election law snafu” might “disenfranchise a massive number of voters.”
Usually New York’s absentee ballots need a stamp, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an order in May requiring that for the June election voters “be provided with a postage paid return envelope.” That’s a problem, the lawsuit says, because the U.S. Postal Service “does not traditionally postmark prepaid envelopes.” Despite reported USPS assurances that it would handle election mail correctly, the suit claims thousands of ballots arrived in time to be counted yet lack the necessary postmark.
Unofficial early data suggest that ballot rejection rates for the 12th District could hit 19% in Queens and Manhattan and 28% in Brooklyn. The lawsuit asks that ballots be considered valid if they arrived by June 30, postmark or no. Inevitably, though, this would create the opposite error: Counting truly invalid ballots that were mailed after Election Day.
On Sunday President Trump again refused to say if he’ll accept the result of the November presidential election. He’s wrong to say that, but Democrats ought to be working to make sure no one has an excuse to challenge the outcome.
They should examine New York’s voting mess and then take action. Mail-vote deadlines should be moved earlier, not later. Absentee ballots should be counted only if they arrive by Election Day, so an initial tally is available that night. Otherwise Americans might spend Christmas wondering which self-claimed President-elect will prevail in court.
NYPD Chief who knelt with protesters in June gets injured in clash with protesters
NYPD Chief Who Knelt With Protesters In June Gets Injured In Clash With Protesters
By Hank Berrien
Jul 15, 2020
The highest-ranking uniformed member of the NYPD, Chief of Department Terence Monahan, who knelt with protesters at the beginning of June, was one of four NYPD officers injured during protests in New York on Wednesday. Monahan and the other injured officers were marching with a pro-police group when they clashed with anti-police activists.
“Police photos of the aftermath showed a lieutenant with a bloodied face, a detective holding a bandage to his head, and a bicycle officer helping a fellow officer dress a head wound. Monahan, who last month kneeled in a show of solidarity with protesters, sustained injuries to his hand,” The Associated Press reported Wednesday.
Monahan was “said to be bloodied but not seriously hurt,” ABC 7 stated, noting that a sergeant and a lieutenant who were attacked with canes and bats were transported to a hospital.
https://twitter.com/NYPDnews/status/1283442839884627980
Bill Casey of the Retired Sergeant Association told ABC 7, “We’re fighting for unity. It just seems that there’s so much violence. And the cops are being portrayed as villains instead of what they really are, which is heroes.”
On June 1, Monahan knelt with protesters.
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1267775265507336192
Monahan stated that his kneeling was the first step in “getting this together” and “getting those groups out of here,” referring to reputed outside agitators stirring up trouble. “The people who live in New York want New York to end the violence. Get the intruders that are not from this city the h*** out of here and give us back our city.”
“We’ve had five days of war here, that needs to end. It has to end today,” he added, telling protesters, “Leave it out to those who are to cause damage and we’ll get rid of them. We’ll get rid of those that are ruining your neighborhood.”
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio praised Monahan, saying, “Terry Monahan defused a very tense situation in Washington Square Park. This is not just an average cop. He took a knee with the protesters out of respect. That’s an indelibly powerful statement.”
Monahan stated on “CBS This Morning” of the protests after the death of George Floyd, “What happened in Minnesota was an outrage, completely and totally. But 800,000 law enforcement officers around this country are paying the price for what that guy did in Minnesota.”
He then appealed to the protesters, saying, “Protest, yell, scream, let your rage out, but don’t take your rage out on the community, destroy the businesses that actually employ members of this community.”
Monahan continued, “Bottles and rocks thrown at my cops, windows being broken, stores being looted … got no place in American society … You have to look at the entire incident. You have to look at the rocks being thrown, the injuries to my officers, what happened before, what precipitated that event. Knowing that we had a commanding officer trapped in his car, his last transmission was, ‘This may be my last transmission,’ dragged out of that car. This is what’s going through a cop’s mind as he gets surrounded.”
“I would never say that we are a racist police department. Absolutely not,” he concluded. “Have incidents happened? Maybe there was a racist incident, something, and that person has been removed from this agency? Absolutely. We all care about the communities we work in. We care deeply in the minority communities, the cops that work there, each and every day.”
White woman who attacked police officers with firebomb blamed ‘black man’ for giving her the materials until her white accomplice confessed
White Woman Who Attacked Police Officers with Firebomb Blamed ‘Black Man’ for Giving Her the Materials Until Her White Accomplice Confessed
By Niara Savage
July 8, 2020
Samantha Shader, a 27-year-old white woman, was arrested on charges of throwing Molotov cocktails at an NYPD vehicle occupied by four officers at a protest following the death of George Floyd in late May. She faces charges including use of explosives to commit a felony, arson, and use of a destructive device.
Shader’s actions were caught on tape and she admitted to throwing the makeshift explosive but claimed three “Black” strangers had approached her on the street and given her the bottle. But this past Friday, July 3, police arrested a white man who admitted to federal authorities he’d given Shader the materials for the firebomb. Timothy Amerman, a 29-year-old painter, now faces up to 10 years of prison time if he is convicted on charges of civil disorder or civil disorder conspiracy.
Although Shader’s story about a group of Black people giving her the Molotov cocktail gear is false, her account of the encounter is fairly detailed. She said the man who gave her the bottle was a “thicker guy’ with his hair in “skinny dreads,” of different colors. She said the second man was wearing a hat and that the woman who was with them had “poofy” hair. Shader says she felt important at the time because she was the only white person around, and took the bottle.
No one in the police vehicle Shader targeted was injured, and the officers escaped the van to apprehend her. Prosecutors say Shader bit an officer’s leg as they took her into custody.
Upon searching Shader’s vehicle, police found a note with Amerman’s fingerprints on it that said: “I found a few more glass bottles than I thought I had, though still not many. I’m giving you my mask in hopes that helps. Wish I had more. There’s also a bag in here for you. BE SAFE Please. Really Good Luck, – Love Tim.”
Amerman told police he gave Shader “projectiles to throw at police and counter-protesters.”
According to federal agencies, the accomplices regularly post anti-police memes on Facebook. Shader posted that “Black people should be allowed to burn down the country thew built for free, and Amerman said in a post from late May that cops are “Tax collectors with guns. Wife beaters. Murderers.”
Amerman is currently being held in Albany, New York, as he waits to face his charges, and Shader, who has been arrested 11 times before, faces life in prison.
One of the very biggest reasons yet for why the lockdown is a scam: A federal judge struck down Cuomo’s and de Blasio’s lockdown orders for churches because the lockdown did not apply to Black Lives Matter protests
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
June 26, 2020
My list of reasons why the lockdown is a scam can be read at Here are 150 reasons why I’m against the COVID-19 lockdowns
Here’s a new one that I’ll be adding the next time I update my list.
A federal judge has ruled against the lockdown on churches and synagogues by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, because the lockdown did not apply to Black Lives Matter protestors.
This is absolute proof, from a federal judge, that the lockdown is a scam.
Here are some examples of Cuomo’s and de Blasio’s hypocrisy:
De Blasio broke up a rabbi’s funeral, citing the virus as the reason, but allowed a funeral for George Floyd.
De Blasio threatened to shut down synagogues and churches, but not mosques.
De Blasio said he still supported quarantine measures that limited attendance at houses of worship to 10, even as he supported much larger gatherings for Black Lives Matter protests.
Cuomo criticized anti-lockdown protestors, but defended Black Lives Matter protestors who violated the lockdown.
And one of the most absurd examples of the lockdown’s double standards: A Jewish children’s gathering turned into a George Floyd protest so De Blasio wouldn’t shut it down.
Here’s a photograph of it. Note the sign on the left that says, “Justice for George Floyd.”
https://twitter.com/JakeTurx/status/1268970681351405575
Make up your minds, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio. Either the virus is too dangerous for people to be gathering in large groups, or it’s not. You can’t have it be safe for people that you agree with, but dangerous for people that you disagree with. Viruses don’t work that way. The virus doesn’t know or care why people are gathering together in large groups.
Here’s the article:
Citing protests, federal judge strikes down Cuomo and de Blasio lockdown orders for churches
By Nicholas Rowan
June 26, 2020
A federal judge on Friday struck down orders issued by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio that limit the size of church services.
The ruling, a preliminary injunction delivered by District Judge Gary Sharpe, notes that by endorsing protests for racial justice while simultaneously discouraging large gatherings in churches, both Cuomo and de Blasio undermined their claim that their lockdown orders were “generally applicable.”
“The State argues, in overly-simplistic fashion, that the challenged laws only incidentally impose a burden on religious exercise, and they are neutral and generally applicable, and therefore, only rational basis need be shown, which is self-evident: preventing the spread of COVID-19,” Sharpe wrote. “The State was silent with respect to the mass race protests.”
Sharpe added that de Blasio’s comments with regard to churches, as well as his attitude toward New York Jewish communities, made it difficult for the mayor to make a “legitimate” claim that he is not biased against people of faith while favoring protests.
“Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio could have just as easily discouraged protests, short of condemning their message, in the name of public health and exercised discretion to suspend enforcement for public safety reasons instead of encouraging what they knew was a flagrant disregard of the outdoor limits and social distancing rules,” Sharpe wrote. “They could have also been silent. But by acting as they did, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio sent a clear message that mass protests are deserving of preferential treatment.”
De Blasio, in early June, said that allowing protests and allowing religious services were “not the same question.”
The ruling came after Catholic churches and Orthodox synagogues in upstate New York filed a suit earlier this month alleging that Cuomo’s executive orders violated their First Amendment rights.
Following Sharpe’s order, New York officials are no longer allowed to impose limits on indoor, in-person religious gatherings.
Note from Daniel Alman: If you like this blog post that I wrote, you can buy my books from amazon, and/or donate to me via PayPal, using the links below:
Note from Daniel Alman: I’d like to recommend that you visit Whatfinger News. It’s a really awesome website.
Twitter video: Asra Q. Nomani @AsraNomani writes: “Red Mercedes AFP-9360 (pls note @NYPDnews) rolls up, white woman in the backseat handing bricks to black men. A black woman with more commonsense than all the white Antifa cheerleaders combined gives them hell. ‘You’re stupid…You can get them killed!'”
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
June 6, 2020
I recently found this video. Absolutely disgusting what Antifa is doing:
https://twitter.com/AsraNomani/status/1267490598652719110
And in case Twitter deletes it, here’s the same video from YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF-v-7sBvPY
Note from Daniel Alman: If you like this blog post that I wrote, you can buy my books from amazon, and/or donate to me via PayPal, using the links below:
Note from Daniel Alman: I’d like to recommend that you visit Whatfinger News. It’s a really awesome website.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez apparently blames Trump for the fact that New York and New Jersey forced nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. And she apparently doesn’t know that Florida’s sunshine is good for your immune system. And she apparently thinks Florida’s death rate is higher than New York’s and New Jersey’s.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
May 17, 2020
Wow!
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets so many different things wrong in the video below.
As I have explained here and here, New York and New Jersey both required nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. This caused the disease to spread, and infect, and kill, a huge number of people who lived in these nursing homes. This constitutes mass murder.
But instead of blaming this mass murder on New York and New Jersey, Ocasio-Cortez apparently blames it on Trump.
And as I explained here, Florida banned nursing homes from admitting patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. This saved a huge number of lives.
But instead of praising Florida’s actions, Ocasio-Cortez criticizes the state.
Ocasio-Cortez also apparently doesn’t understand that the sunshine at Florida’s beaches helps people’s bodies to generate vitamin D, and that this helps to protect them from COVID-19.
Also, Ocasio-Cortez apparently doesn’t seem to understand that just about every single mass outbreak of COVID-19 that has been documented, happened inside.
And Ocasio-Cortez apparently thinks that Florida’s death rate is higher than New York’s and New Jersey’s.
But here are the real numbers. COVID-19 deaths per 1 million population, as of May 17, 2020. Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
New York: 1,446
New Jersey: 1,155
Florida: 92
Likewise, the Palm Beach Post reported the following rates of elder-care resident deaths per 100,000 people, as of May 13, 2020:
New York: nearly 27
New Jersey: 51
Florida: 3.5
But I’m not surprised. Time and time and time and time and time and time again, Ocasio-Cortez has proven herself to be completely ignorant when it comes to anything involving numbers.
https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1245651038977179653
Note from Daniel Alman: I have written a book called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wants to Stop Cows from Farting.
You can buy the paperback version at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1796936030
You can buy the amazon kindle version at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NRL9ZM8
New York and New Jersey required nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, Florida prohibited nursing homes from admitting such patients. The different results of these different policies are exactly what you would expect. And in my opinion, what New York and New Jersey did constitutes mass murder.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
May 14, 2020
New York and New Jersey required nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19.
NPR reported:
New York and New Jersey both have ordered nursing homes to admit patients regardless of their COVID-19 status.
In my opinion, this policy constitutes mass murder.
Nursing home patients are elderly. And they have major health conditions. No one is more vulnerable to dying from COVID-19 than people in nursing homes.
Ordering nursing homes to admit patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 is an extremely mean, dumb, stupid, irrational, irresponsible, and insane thing to do.
Florida did the opposite. It prohibited patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 from being put in nursing homes.
The Palm Beach Post reported:
Coronavirus Florida: DeSantis: Florida nursing homes safer than other states
With COVID-19 cases ravaging nursing homes across the state, Gov. Ron DeSantis went on the defensive Wednesday, insisting Florida has done more to protect the elderly than most other states.
Pointing to charts that showed that Florida has had far fewer deaths per capita than New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and even Colorado, DeSantis insisted that the state’s strategy to protect those most at risk for the deadly disease has worked.
“Florida’s approach was to avoid introducing the disease into long-term care facilities,” he said at news conference from the Capitol. “We drew a firm red line.”
State health officials on Wednesday reported that 776 nursing home residents and staff have died of COVID-19, including 83 in Palm Beach County. But, DeSantis insisted the number is low, considering Florida is the third most populous state in the nation and has a high concentration of senior citizens.
Criticizing New York, which he also blames for bringing the coronavirus into Florida, DeSantis said the Empire State initially required nursing homes to take COVID-19-infected patients from hospitals to free up needed critical care beds.
That allowed the virus to spread among New York’s most frail citizens, he said.
In contrast, DeSantis prohibited Florida hospitals from discharging patients with the disease to the state’s 4,400 long-term care facilities, which are home to 150,000 residents and employ 200,000 people.
That policy, he said, is one of the key reasons an average of only two elder-care residents per 100,000 people have died in Florida since the pandemic began in mid-March. The actual number is 3.5 per 100,000.
In New Jersey, out of every 100,000 people in the state, 51 nursing home resident have died. In New York, nearly 27 have died. Even Colorado, which has had a comparatively low 1,067 deaths, more than 10 nursing home residents have died per capita.
And as a result, Florida’s rate of death in nursing homes is far, far, lower than New York’s or New Jersey’s.
The Palm Beach Post reported the following rates of elder-care resident deaths per 100,000 people:
Florida: 3.5
New York: nearly 27
New Jersey: 51
Florida did a far, far better job than New York and New Jersey.
And I still maintain my claim that what New York and New Jersey did constitutes mass murder.
Note from Daniel Alman: I’d like to recommend that you visit Whatfinger News. It’s a really awesome website.
Video: This nurse from Nevada went to New York to treat COVID-19 patients. She said they are dying due to the incompetence, negligence, and indifference of health care workers. She even says that some of these deaths were murder. When she told management, they didn’t care.
I watched this entire 24 minute video. The speaker is a nurse from Nevada named Nicole Sirotek, who went to New York to treat COVID-19 patients. She describes multiple examples of patients who died due to the incompetence, negligence, and indifference of health care workers. She even says that some of these deaths were murder. When she told management, they didn’t care.
I don’t know if she’s telling the truth or not. I hope an independent investigation by outside parties will be conducted, including autopsies, to find out if she is telling the truth or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGTOGZIgkR8
NY issues do-not-resuscitate guideline for cardiac patients amid coronavirus
https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/ny-issues-do-not-resuscitate-guideline-for-cardiac-patients/
NY issues do-not-resuscitate guideline for cardiac patients amid coronavirus
April 21, 2020
New York state just issued a drastic new guideline urging emergency services workers not to bother trying to revive anyone without a pulse when they get to a scene, amid an overload of coronavirus patients.
While paramedics were previously told to spend up to 20 minutes trying to revive people found in cardiac arrest, the change is “necessary during the COVID-19 response to protect the health and safety of EMS providers by limiting their exposure, conserve resources, and ensure optimal use of equipment to save the greatest number of lives,’’ according to a state Health Department memo issued last week.
First responders were outraged over the move.
“They’re not giving people a second chance to live anymore,’’ Oren Barzilay, head of the city union whose members include uniformed EMTs and paramedics, fumed of state officials.
“Our job is to bring patients back to life. This guideline takes that away from us,” he said.
Earlier this month, the Regional Emergency Services Council of New York, which oversees the city’s ambulance service, issued a new guideline that said cardiac-arrest patients whose hearts can’t be restarted at the scene should no longer be taken to the hospital for further life-saving attempts.
City hospitals have been inundated with dying coronavirus patients to the point where there are frequently no ICU beds.
But under the regional council’s directive, emergency workers were still told to work on cardiac-arrest patients on scene for up to 20 minutes.
The new state Health Department guideline wipes out the 20-minute effort.
“Now you don’t get 20 minutes of CPR if you have no rhythm,” a veteran FDNY Emergency Medical Services worker told The Post, referring to cardiac-arrest patients who have no heartbeat when paramedics arrive. “They simply let you die.”
The paramedic acknowledged that only about three or four out of every 100 patients with no pulse — “a small percentage” — are actually brought back to life through CPR and other aggressive intervention such as drugs and hospitalization.
But “for those three or four people, it’s a big deal,” the worker said.
The FDNY swiftly issued a letter Friday, the day after the state’s recommendation, telling city emergency services workers that “the NYC 911 system will continue to maintain a higher level of care,” meaning attempted revivals at scenes would continue.
The state Health Department insists that its new guideline has been in use “in many areas of the US as well as other locations throughout the world” — even pre-COVID-19.
“These changes are based on standards widely agreed upon by the physician leaders of EMS Regional Medical Control Systems across NYS and the Medical Standards Committee of the State Emergency Medical Services Advisory Council,” a department rep told The Post in a statement.
New York and New Jersey, combined, account for more than half of U.S. COVID-19 deaths. Both of these states require nursing homes to admit patients who have tested positive for COVID-19. In my opinion, this policy constitutes mass murder.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
April 22, 2020
New York and New Jersey, combined, account for more than half of U.S. COVID-19 deaths.
As of the afternoon of April 22, 2020, the U.S. has had a total of 46,771 deaths from COVID-19.
20,167 were in New York.
5,063 were in New Jersey.
In other words, these two states, combined, account for more than half of all COVID-19 deaths in the entire country.
Here’s a link to my source, with a screenshot. The screenshot was taken on the afternoon of April 22, 2020:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
Both of these states require nursing homes to admit patients who have tested positive for COVID-19.
NPR recently reported:
New York and New Jersey both have ordered nursing homes to admit patients regardless of their COVID-19 status.
In my opinion, this policy constitutes mass murder.
Nursing home patients are elderly. And they have major health conditions. No one is more vulnerable to dying from COVID-19 than people in nursing homes.
Ordering nursing homes to admit patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 is an extremely mean, dumb, stupid, irrational, irresponsible, and insane thing to do.
This policy has already killed a huge numbers of people.
And who knows how many more will die as a result.
If statewide lockdowns reduce deaths from COVID-19, then why is New York’s per capita death rate more than 50 times higher than Texas’s?
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
April 8, 2020
You can see a list of U.S. states ranked in order by the number of COVID-19 deaths per 1 million population. Go to this link, and scroll down to the list of states. At the top of the list, click where it says “Deaths /1M pop.” Then click on it a second time: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
In addition, here is a map that shows which states have a statewide lockdown, and which do not. Source: https://www.indy100.com/article/coronavirus-lockdown-us-cases-map-stay-home-order-9443151
Looking at these two things, we should be able to see whether nor not statewide lockdowns actually helped to save lives.
New York has a statewide lockdown, and has had 319 deaths per 1 million population.
Texas has not had a statewide lockedown, but its death rate has only been 6 per 1 million people.
So even though New York has a statewide lockdown, and Texas does not, New York’s per capita death rate is actually more than 50 times higher than Texas’s.
What is the explanation for this?
Note: Edited to add the following: People are commenting about differences in population density. My response to this is to point out that of the 13 most heavily populated U.S. cities, five of them are in Texas. Source for image: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_United_States_cities_by_population&oldid=949701887
List of United States cities by population
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Identity Politics Lied. New Yorkers Died.
Identity Politics Lied. New Yorkers Died.
April 2, 2020
Last year, New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot was warning that “even brief contact with the police or indirect exposure is associated with lasting harm to people’s physical and mental health”.
“We as a public health department have really been trying to frame criminal justice system involvement as an exposure,” Barbot’s epidemiologist, Kimberly Zweig, claimed.
Zweig had a degree in epidemiology, but her focus was entirely on PTSD and stress. Not on disease.
Why was New York City so badly unprepared for the arrival of the coronavirus? The answer was radical politics. And Barbot and Zweig embodied the public health mismanagement of a radical administration.
Commissioner Oxiris Barbot, the disgraced figure at the center of the city’s coronavirus meltdown, had graduated from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 1991. She had worked as a pediatrician, before being selected as the Medical Director for the Office of School Health in New York in 2003. Her qualification for the job was unclear and her bio doesn’t list any administrative degrees.
In 2010, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake chose Barbot as Baltimore’s health commissioner. Blake would later become infamous for announcing that she had given the city’s race rioters “space to destroy”.
The city’s murder rate has continued hitting new highs since.
A few years later, Barbot came back to New York City and began working her way up through the Department of Health. When she was named Health Commissioner last year, the big news was that the city had its “first Latina commissioner” who had come out the Bronx housing projects.
Barbot succeeded Mary T. Bassett: a 17-year veteran of the University of Zimbabwe. Bassett had launched the Center for Health Equity and spent her time warning of the public health threat from racism in talks, “Why Your Doctor Should Care About Social Justice”, articles, “How Does Racism Affect Your Health”, and research papers, “Uprooting Institutionalized Racism as Public Health Practice.”
As Health Commissioner, Barbot’s bio boasted that “she uses a racial equity lens” and credited her with “spearheading the creation of the Center for Health Equity which operationalizes the Department’s commitment to racial justice.”
As the coronavirus bore down on New York City, Barbot and the Health Department were busy operationalizing social justice while remaining oblivious to the scientific realities of the pandemic. The department’s focus on health equity required it to discourage recent arrivals from Wuhan from going into self-quarantine or avoiding large public gatherings like the Lunar New Year celebrations.
“We are very clear: We wish New Yorkers a Happy Lunar New Year and we encourage people to spend time with their families and go about their celebration,” Barbot insisted.
A week later, Barbot appeared at a press event promoting Lunar New Year celebrations in Chinatown.
“As we gear up to celebrate the #LunarNewYear in NYC, I want to assure New Yorkers that there is no reason for anyone to change their holiday plans, avoid the subway, or certain parts of the city because of #coronavirus,” she insisted.
By then there had already been over 17,000 cases of the Wuhan Virus in China with nearly 3,000 new cases in one day. For the first time, someone outside Mainland China had died of the disease.
Manhattan’s Chinatown, where Barbot had appeared, is one of the densest parts of the city. The old core community where the Lunar New Year celebration is based is a maze of cramped tenements, narrow streets, tiny stores whose counters extend far into the street, and other unsafe conditions
Barbot went on urging people to participate in the parade while spreading misinformation about the risk. “You won’t get it merely from riding the subways – you get it from secretions,” she even claimed.
The commissioner went on with the happy talk in March.
After the first coronavirus case in the city, she claimed that “disease detectives” would prevent the spread of the coronavirus and that New Yorkers were “at low risk”.
“As we confront this emerging outbreak, we need to separate facts from fear, and guard against stigma and panic,” Commissioner Barbot signed off: warning that the real enemy was prejudice.
“There’s no indication that being in a car, being in the subways with someone who’s potentially sick is a risk factor,” she told New Yorkers.
Four days later, she finally admitted, “It’s not just prolonged household contact as we initially thought. We have evidence that there are other types of interactions that can occur that can transmit the virus.”
Barbot and her boss, Mayor Bill de Blasio, had been spreading dangerous nonsense with no scientific basis. When asked about some of her claims at a press conference, she said, “This is a novel virus that we’re still learning a lot about.”
That was better than Bill de Blasio who, when asked how Barbot’s Department of Health had decided that the virus dies quickly in the air, rambled, “All information is valuable, but the information that we’re gleaning from our own direct experience is the most valuable to us.”
Had New York City’s health authorities lost their minds? Not exactly. They had enveloped their medical decisions in a fog of identity politics pseudoscience which had redefined medicine around equity.
That was Barbot’s real job. The obsession with equity in everything had been the signature of the entire De Blasio administration. Just as Marxists had used class as the master theory explaining all the problems of human history, radicals in this country had redefined racism as the explanation for all ills.
To Barbot and De Blasio, the coronavirus wasn’t the real threat, racism was. Their job was to suppress overreaction to the coronavirus by persuading New Yorkers that there was no real risk of contagion.
The actual science, objective research, was irrelevant compared to the city’s own truths about racism.
In the midst of the pandemic, this may seem inconceivable, but all that happened was that New York City’s leaders applied the same approach to the coronavirus that they had used for crime and terrorism.
When it came to terrorism and crime, the policy had been to minimize the risk, cover up actual cases and to warn against prejudice toward communities likely to engage in crime or terrorism. This approach had failed miserably in preventing crime or terrorism, but the actual scale of the damage had not been so devastating as to actually make a major dent in daily life in New York City.
New York City’s Health Department had already medicalized this approach with HIV. Last year, the Health Department was back to running ads encouraging sex with HIV positive people.
“This new U = U campaign underscores the fact that people living with HIV have more choices than ever before,” Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot boasted. “With a sexual health plan that includes taking HIV medication, regular medical care, and using condoms, New Yorkers with HIV can live long, fulfilling, and healthy lives with the options they have now.”
“People living with HIV are lovable, touchable, and should feel confident that, with effective treatment, they can live free of the concern of transmitting the virus,” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, Deputy Commissioner for the Health Department’s Division of Disease Control added.
The difference with coronavirus was how quickly the risk of a disease outbreak turned into the reality.
New York City’s politicized government had inhabited its own bubble in which filling the streets with criminals, protecting terrorists and illegal aliens, or encouraging unsafe sex, was ideologically correct. And the casualties of this ideological destruction, whether bicycling tourists in Manhattan, young gay men, or young women in Central Park, were easy enough to bury in press releases full of Newspeak.
But the coronavirus crisis did not work that way. And Barbot and De Blasio were behind the curve. The radicals running the city were not only out of step with science, but with the rest of the country.
By the time reality, in the form of angry editorials, state action, local protests, intruded, it was too late.
The coronavirus outbreak has exploded in New York City. And everyone has gone all in on the cover-up. The inept De Blasio administration, which didn’t bother ordering protective equipment until March, when it was still assuring New Yorkers that there was nothing to worry about, has been blaming Trump.
But that’s a mistake.
The coronavirus pandemic contains important lessons. Trying to suppress those lessons will carry an even heavier price. The price can be postponed, but the interest rate on it will be even higher.
New York City’s dense grid, its cramped public transportation, and large foreign population put it at risk, but it was an ideological contempt for objective science by identity politics radicals that left it naked.
The Chinese Communist leadership had refused to believe that a virus could take off in their perfect system. Ideology blinded them to the outbreak the same way it did their leftist counterparts in New York City who were obsessed with making sure that the Lunar New Year celebrations went forward in their perfect utopia to prove that science doesn’t matter and that the only real virus is racism.
Mayor Bill de Blasio had dismantled the city’s Department of Health, replacing its personnel with unqualified hacks whose job was to medicalize social justice, and warn of the public health threats of the police, or hair discrimination, while assuring city residents that they had nothing to fear from COVID-19.
New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot warned New Yorkers that brief contact with the police was dangerous, but that brief contact with people infected with the coronavirus wasn’t.
Identity politics lied. New Yorkers died.
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 