Category: New York

Are New York Jews now the biggest per-capita financial supporters of anti-Jewish propaganda?

by philg

“Mamdani slammed for ‘corrupting history’ about the creation of Israel in social media post marking ‘Nakba Day’” (New York Post):

The “Nakba” could equally be remembered as the anniversary of the united Arab professional militaries invading the new UN-created State of Israel with the stated intention of driving all of the civilian Jews into the sea. Arabs living in the area allocated to the Jews were urged by their invading brothers to get out of the way so that the Jews could be defeated without collateral harm to Muslims. Those Arabs who moved eventually began to identify as “Palestinians”. Those who stayed became Arab citizens of Israel (about 2.1 million people today, including their descendants). From an anti-Jewish point of view, of course, the Nakba refers to a forced displacement similar to what ethnic Germans suffered in Central Europe after World War 11 or what Hindus and Pakistanis suffered when India was partitioned. From a purely historical perspective, the term was was used August 1948 by Syrian Constantin Zureiq in his book Ma’na al-Nakba (The Meaning of the Disaster). The “Nakba” was the Arabs’ failure to win the war that they’d started, an incredible display of incompetence given that civilians aren’t supposed to be a match for even one nation’s regular military, much less five (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon; Saudi Arabia and Yemen also sent troops) and that Arabs outnumbered Jews in the region by at least 150:1 (today that’s closer to 70;1).

Who’s funding Ayatollah Mamdani to promote the anti-Jewish side of the events of 1948? Thousands of high-income Jews! They could leave center-of-Jew-hate New York City and move to Palm Beach County, Florida, the world’s largest investor in Israel bonds. It’s a 2.5-hour JetBlue flight or an easy Tesla self-drive down I-95, but they won’t do it.

If high-income Jews moved out of NYC, they’d quickly be replaced by migrants, of course, just as any American can and will be easily replaced, but the tax base might shrink to the point that Mayor Mamdani would have to focus on administering local government rather than on highlighting Israel’s misdeeds.

Why has pouring out anti-Israel points of view been a political winner for Democrats? Victor Davis Hanson explains in “The Four Horsemen of the New Antisemitism”:

in demographic terms, the US Muslim population is expanding exponentially, due almost entirely to recent immigration and higher birth rates than the American norm (e.g., 2.5–8 versus 1.6–1.7).

There are now nearly five million Muslim Americans. These numbers are anticipated by 2030 to surpass the Jewish American population.

An entire generation of young American elites has been groomed in universities to despise Israel and, by extension, to express hostility toward Jews. After October 7, the scab was torn away, revealing what had festered underneath for years.

The DEI binary fuels both anti-Israel and anti-Jewish animus. In this Marxist moral schema, the world abroad—and within the United States—is divided into “white oppressors” and “nonwhite victims,” despite the fact that people commonly classified as white comprise only a small minority of the global population.

Thus, Jews in America found themselves classified among the whitest and most privileged of the oppressor class, perhaps by virtue of their material success, while Israel abroad was deemed a white colonialist settler state because it repeatedly defeated neighboring enemies.

For figures like Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, or Chuck Schumer to forcefully challenge hatred of Israel—and, by extension, of the Jews—would now be treated as political heresy, a career-ending death wish. Defending Israel and calling out antisemitism became as unfashionable in progressive circles as praising secure borders, deportations, or fossil fuels and pipelines

what is left in the pathway of demonizing Israel and blaming Jews, here and abroad, is the supposed bigot Donald Trump and his “irredeemable,” “deplorable” MAGA movement—for now, the last dam holding back the rising flood.

The above might not be 100% correct/complete, but it is certainly bizarre that Jewish Americans support Democrats with both votes and tax dollars.

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Environmentalists and inequality-haters in New York City

by philg

The Righteous of New York City love to talk about how they’re protecting our precious planet. Here’s their police department proudly displaying a video of perfectly functional mopeds being crushed rather than being sold and/or exported to a lower-income country:

If we want to reduce carbon emissions, does it make sense to destroy 5,700 mopeds?

Also confusing… the people who run both New York State and New York City say that they hate inequality. New York City plainly is stuffed full of richer people than New York State. The rulers of NYS and NYC, however, have agreed to funnel NYS money to NYC, thus exacerbating inequality… “Hochul forks over another $4B to bail out Mamdani’s NYC budget woes as she faces intense election pressure”:

Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled a whopping $124.7 billion executive budget for New York City on Tuesday – built on the back of $4 billion in funny money from Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The governor’s bailout – announced hours before the city budget’s reveal – was quickly criticized as a fiction used to help out her reluctant ally Mamdani as she faces re-election and pressure to appease the lefty mayor’s comrades.

If inequality haters in NYC actually do hate inequality, they shouldn’t want to receive any money from the state. (Same deal with Harvard University, which says officially that inequality is bad and then takes federal money that could have been spent at University of Michigan instead (U. Mich. is a poorer university than Harvard and located in a poorer state than Maskachusetts).)

Finally, let’s reflect that Mamdanism (steal from the rich; give to everyone else) is going to end up working beautifully because the rich won’t move out of NY and stop paying for whatever Ayatollah Mamdani and his sidekick Gov. Hochul dream up. The rest of the U.S. can reasonably vote for Mamdanism on a federal level after watching what a success it has been in NYC due to these elite tax cattle staying in place and paying.

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New York’s pied-à-terre tax vs. Florida’s homestead discount

by philg

New York City (and maybe the state as well) are generating outrage by proposing to tax residential real estate that isn’t a primary residence at a higher rate than the same property would pay if occupied by somewho who was a full-time NYC resident.

What other city or state indulges in this outrageous abuse of society’s successful? Florida! Let’s look at starter homes in Palm Beach. Here’s one that was purchased for $4.45 million in 2011 and is today worth $14.3 million (Zillow).

The tax assessment is still less than the purchase price, presumably due to the fact that the assessed value for a “homestead” (primary residence) can’t go up more than 3 percent or the increase in CPI, whichever is lower:

If there were an identical house next door and it sold for $14 million to someone who used it only 4 months per year, the town/county could collect property tax on the full value, i.e., 3X the tax rate paid by the primary resident.

A surcharge for part-time residents generates outrage. A discount for full-time residents doesn’t upset anyone. NYC could have doubled property tax rates, with state permission, and then offered a steep discount for anyone who pays resident NYC income tax.

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Instead of free public transit, how about congestion rebate public transit?

by philg

Happy Earth Day to those who used to celebrate before they moved on to Queers for Palestine, etc.! And what better way to celebrate Earth Day than to get on a clean soot-spewing diesel-powered bus? “It’s where America’s poor and very poor can meet,” a friend pointed out.

Ayatollah Mamdani wants to bring free bus service to the Manhattan Caliphate, though it seems as if the dream is deferred (“Zohran Mamdani backs down on cornerstone campaign promise of free NYC buses” (NY Post)). A Republican in the NYC woodpile objects because “free busses will inevitably turn into rolling homeless shelters and drug dens, and become miserable and dangerous for the people who actually need to utilize them”:

(Wokipedia on the horrors of this Deplorable harpy: “Paladino has openly expressed Islamophobic and homophobic views. She has also opposed pro-Palestinian protests during the Gaza War, squatter houses, Drag Queen Story Hour, congestion pricing, and COVID-19 vaccine mandates.”)

As someone who loves Zohran and hates sitting in traffic jams, I’m a believer that public transit should be free and, actually, negatively priced during peak traffic congestion. On the other hand, maybe Vickie Paladino is right that “free” in a filthy city such as New York doesn’t attract the best people.

How about if people pay the usual fare when boarding, but via a smartphone app become eligible for a monthly rebate that is paid via Zelle. The unhoused New Yorkers and drug-dealing New Yorkers whom Paladino doesn’t want to encounter aren’t likely to have bank accounts and, therefore, aren’t likely to be able to get rebates via Zelle.

The rebate would vary by the ride and time of day and be linked to congestion on the roads. Someone who rode the bus during rush hour (that’s 8 am to 8 pm in NYC?) would get a rebate larger than whatever the fare is cranked up to. Someone who rode the bus at midnight wouldn’t get a rebate, which aligns pretty well with transit system costs because it is expensive per rider to maintain a schedule at night when ridership is low.

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Brave fighters against Islamophobia in New York prove law professor’s point

by philg

Yesterday, CBS ran a headline communicating to readers that the noble leader of NYC was attacked: “FBI launches terrorism investigation after homemade explosive device ignited outside of NYC Mayor Mamdani’s residence”. The article, however, tells a different story:

New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters on Saturday that an anti-Islam protest was organized by people associated with Jake Lang, a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter and far-right influencer. A group of counter-protesters, numbering more than 100, also gathered, and two young men from Pennsylvania, angered by the anti-Islam protest, brought the homemade bombs to the gathering, intending to cause harm, law enforcement sources told CBS News.

Videos showing the chaos from the protests, verified by the CBS News Confirmed team, show a man apparently yelling “Allahu Akbar” – or “God is Most Great” – just as a protester, identified as 18-year-old Emir Balat, of Pennsylvania, allegedly throws an “ignited device.”

Jake Lang falsely asserted that some percentage of Muslims living in a non-Muslim society would inevitably choose to wage jihad, as seen in the follow examples:

Thus far, the story seems to be that two Muslim-Americans, both children of immigrants, wanted to show how wrong Mr. Lang was regarding the above. They manufactured bombs and threw them at Mr. Lang and surrounding haters infected with irrational Islamophobia.

Let’s step back for a moment and consider this classic lecture by a law professor:

CNN: “two men arrested in connection with the device admitted to being inspired by ISIS”.

Since, as a practical matter, being a violent criminal isn’t against any New York State or City law, they could have been back out on the street already if they hadn’t talked about ISIS to the police. Instead of being free to work on their next jihad, therefore, they now face the potential of federal terrorism charges and actual prison time.

Lesson from the law prof: “Don’t Talk to the Police”!

Fakely related… (source)

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Record of New York City coronapanic

by philg

Friends in Manhattan now deny that they were ever locked down, that their kids’ schools were ever closed, that they were ever forced to wear masks, and that they ever had their vaccine papers checked.

Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden (wife) is nominally about her husband “James” (a pseudonym for Henry Patterson Davis (nytimes 1999 wedding announcement)) deciding to avail himself of New York’s no-fault no-shame unilateral divorce system in which “I’d rather have sex with a 35-year-old than a 50-year-old” is a sufficient reason for breaking up the homes of two sets of children. The book, however, also provides some insight into how elite youngish healthy-weight New Yorkers’ processed the threat of SARS-CoV-2, a virus that was killing obese 80-year-olds.

The couple starts by fleeing the filthy virus-ridden city for their Martha’s Vineyard house and, while there, the wife learns that the husband is having sex with a mom who “was thirty-five but looked twenty“.

In the days that followed, I continued to try to hide the truth from the girls. A therapist I spoke with said I should wait to tell them until the pandemic was less scary. It was still March, the second week of lockdown. We thought it would be over soon. Or at least that the worst of it—the deaths, the shutdown, the unknowns—would end. But instead of easing, the pandemic had become more frightening. And so had I, appearing at dinner with swollen eyes and unwashed hair.

Zoom isn’t only for 18 months of pretend school:

He said he thought it would be better if I told them alone. Initially, I agreed with him. I was afraid that he would expose us to COVID. He was not in quarantine; he was having an affair in the middle of New York City. We decided we would do a family Zoom call to break the news.

May, during a brief visit back to the plagued city:

As he welcomed the girls, with the same blue mask and excited energy we’d seen in April,

September 2020, also in the city. Schools would be closed for another year, but adults were free to mingle in restaurants, meet each other on Tinder (Grindr for New Yorkers?), etc.:

We still had to wear masks, pulling them down to talk, back up when the waitress approached to take our orders.

Late November 2020, at an expensive house in the Hamptons:

Thanksgiving that year, at Susan’s house in Sagaponack, was strange and chaotic—twenty people, including my brother’s family and my cousins, all of us cooking in masks.

Diversity is our strength, but when a virus becomes more diverse it is time for renewed panic:

I debated doing something different, going somewhere new, but it wasn’t possible. COVID was still raging. The first variant had arrived in the United States in November.

The author is defending a divorce lawsuit in which her spending power is to be cut by 90 percent (a prenup kept their property and earnings separate, for the most part, and the husband/plaintiff had become a hedge fund hero), yet still has time for a full year of personal coropanic:

In early 2021, the pandemic continued to keep New Yorkers home. We were still masked, still avoiding gatherings, still scared.

While kids in NYC housing projects are consigned to watching a bored government worker on a small screen via Zoom, elite children can enjoy the company of other humans 24/7 at a boarding school:

I visited Evie at her boarding school in Delaware as often as I could, as often as the school would allow me. They had very strict rules during the pandemic. Parents could not enter buildings. The students could not leave the gates. It was like they were in prison. I brought Evie and her friends Taco Bell, Chick-fil-A, Chipotle. We sat outside on the lawn, in the cold, pulling down our paper masks to eat.

After years staying at home(s) and in the Vineyard tennis club, the mom/defendant goes back to work as an attorney. Her first project is trying to make sure that there isn’t any reduction in the supply of labor for landscaping at her Martha’s Vineyard house:

My law partner and I took on another immigration case. We were representing our first male client, a fourteen-year-old boy. His mother had died when he was two. He had been physically and emotionally abused by his father. He had been forced to miss school to work in their fields. He had been harassed, chased, and beaten by local gangs. At thirteen, he traveled by bus and train toward the United States, eventually crossing the border by foot. He was detained by border agents and released with a USCIS hearing date. He took a bus to New York, where he was welcomed by his maternal aunt. Neither my partner nor I speak Spanish, so we engaged a friend of hers, another former corporate lawyer, to translate. We conducted interviews, all slower with translation, and prepared his documents. We appeared at our client’s USCIS hearing and filed his paperwork in family court.

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No financial reward for the Covid Righteous (Metropolitan Opera)

by philg

The Metropolitan Opera celebrated and followed the Science, meekly closing their doors and breaking their audience of the habit of buying tickets and attending live opera. They demanded vaccine papers when the Met was finally reopened in 2022:

The opera nerds transformed themselves into Science nerds:

The decision was made in consultation with the Met’s health experts at Mount Sinai.

What was the level of confidence in the efficacy of the required three shots?

Face masks will still be required at all times inside the Met, except when eating or drinking in designated areas.

Where’s the reward for this level of righteousness? For giving up more than 1.5 years of revenue plus whatever revenue they might have obtained from the 16-year-olds they turned away for having only two COVID-19 shots rather than three?

“Despite Drastic Financial Steps, Met Opera Turns to Layoffs and Cuts” (New York Times, January 20, 2026):

The largest performing arts organization in the country will lay off workers, cut salaries and reduce its offerings. It may also sell its Chagall murals that are valued at $55 million.

Over the past five years, the Metropolitan Opera has drained money from its endowment, entered a still-tentative $200 million deal with Saudi Arabia and cut back its performance schedule as it struggled to bring stability to an institution hammered by the coronavirus pandemic.

As part of the latest cuts, the Met will reduce its next season to 17 productions, from 18. (Before the pandemic, it programmed about 25 per season.)

Since 2022, the company has drawn $120 million from its $217.5 million endowment, an unorthodox and risky move that arts executives said was a sign of the depth of the Met’s financial problems.

We know that God loves lockdowns and Scientists. Why hasn’t She rewarded the Met with financial prosperity?

(Shouldn’t we be bullish in the long-run prospects for the Met, though? If the AI and Robotics age gives Americans more leisure time and owners of capital more money that should increase the number of people with the time and money necessary to attend a four-hour opera experience at the Met.)

Meanwhile, among the Deplorables where forcing people to accept Covid injections is illegal… “Wells Fargo moves wealth-management unit to Palm Beach, joining Florida rush” (New York Post):

The San Francisco-based bank signed a lease with Related Ross – run by real estate mogul Stephen Ross – to rent 50,000 square feet at the One Flagler office building, wealth chief Barry Sommers told Bloomberg.

It’s a significant move for the wealth department, which last year generated $16 billion in revenue, or roughly a fifth of the bank’s total revenue, and has about 100 of its senior executives, Sommers added.

Loosely related… “Met Museum Employees Vote to Unionize” (NYT, January 16, 2026):

Employees voted 542 to 172 in favor of joining Local 2110 of the United Automobile Workers, a driving force in the unionization of New York arts organizations that has spent the past five years quietly laying the groundwork for this vote. The bargaining unit includes employees from a variety of departments including curatorial, conservation, education and retail.

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Why would New York State subsidize parents in New York City, but not in poorer parts of New York State?

by philg

Confusing news from the Mamdani Caliphate… “Mamdani Presses for Tax Hike on New York’s Wealthiest as Budget Deficit Looms” (Wall Street Journal):

Mamdani also wants Albany lawmakers to increase the amount of state funding the city receives. Hochul has boosted state funding to the city since she took office, according to a spokeswoman for the governor.

The governor and the mayor said earlier this month the state would fund a rollout of free child care for 2-year-olds in the city—another major policy proposal of Mamdani’s campaign.

New York City is wealthier than the rest of New York State. Why would people who say that they’re against inequality want to see money funneled from the Rust Belt cities of Upstate to Manhattan? As a parent myself, I’m a huge supporter of any government program that forces the childless to work extra hours and gives the resulting money earned to Americans who are blessed with and can enjoy children. However, how is it fair for a parent of a 2-year-old in NYC to get free child care while the parent of a 2-year-old in Syracuse or Buffalo gets nothing?

If NYC wants to add services for its residents why wouldn’t NYC fund that with city taxes, e.g., on the Wall Street heroes, owners of skyscrapers, etc.?

(The median income in NYC, of course, isn’t high, but rich people in NYC are stratospherically rich.)

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The Mamdani Caliphate officially begins

by philg

Happy New Year to those who celebrate and, of course, Happy Last Day of Kwanzaa to everyone.

Today is the day that Ayatollah Mamdani takes over control of New York City. Folks have made dire predictions about what might happen under a Mamdani Caliphate, but I find it tough to believe that he could do a worse job than his predecessors. Here’s a calculation of what’s been happening in NYC public schools, for example:

Source for the above:

I share some goals with the new mayor, actually. I’m an enthusiast for free public transit, which is fairly common in Florida (trolleys along tourist routes in Miami Beach, Uber-style Teslas zipping people around Coral Gables). I suppose sufficiently high congestion prices for driving around NYC that there aren’t any traffic jams and the money used to make the buses and subways (1) free, (2) frequent, and (3) comfortable. Mobility that doesn’t cause time-wasting traffic is something that New York is rich enough to afford and 98 percent of the infrastructure is already paid for (subway tracks, roads, buses). As a resident of Palm Beach County, I’m a huge fan of massive tax increases on the NYC rich. Every successful New Yorker who moves to Palm Beach from NY lowers our property tax bill (where “success” = rich enough to buy a $10 million house).

For readers who are celebrating Kwanzaa, a golden retriever busting into the Kwanzaa bush:

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Replacementocracy

by philg

American-born New Yorkers said that they would vote for Andrew Cuomo (October 18 poll). Foreign-born New Yorkers said that that they would vote for Mayor Mamdani (charts below). What do we call the system of government that brought Mayor Mamdani to power? It doesn’t seem like “democracy” since many of the voters, like the new mayor himself, are only recently arrived. How about “replacementocracy” for when an election result is determined by the votes of immigrants? The neologism is literally “rule by replacements”.

The actual election results seem to be consistent with the above poll. Screen shot from last night:

Separately, it was interesting to watch Florida Realtor of the Year 2020 and 2021 compete against Florida Realtor of the Year 2026.

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