Sunday, January 5, 2025
Lionel Messi Tells Biden Where to Shove His "Medal of Freedom"
Lionel Messi SNUBBED Joe Biden, and skipped the Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony, where he was supposed to receive the award.
Messi didn’t even send anyone to accept it on his behalf.
Brian Kilmeade Fooled into Thinking Bob Good "Who was Defeated" Would oppose Mike Johnson
Brian Kilmeade was fooled into thinking former congressman Bob Good who was defeated in the GOP primary would oppose Mike Johnson in today’s speaker’s vote.
Listen to Scott Jennings give the reason Why the Judge Want to Sentence Trump Before Inauguration
SCOTT JENNINGS:
Of course Trump won't be punished in his NY hush money case. The only reason they did this was to call him a convicted felon, but the people rejected it.
Violent Clashes bet. Syrian Rebels and Hezbollah Terrorists
Violent clashes erupted over the weekend between forces of the Syrian Ministry of Defense, which is controlled by the rebels, and Hezbollah terrorists. The clashes took place in the countryside west of Damascus, near the Syrian-Lebanese border, Channel 14 reported Sunday morning.
According to the report, Hezbollah terrorists, with the help of drug traffickers with whom they have been cooperating, attempted to establish new positions in Syria. In response, the Syrian Ministry of Defense sent military reinforcements to thwart their attempts.
It should be noted that until recently, Hezbollah operated unhindered inside Syria, but now the situation is changing. The rebels are trying to demonstrate control and governance in the field. However, developments remain unpredictable.
Arab affairs analyst Dr. Mordechai Keder suggested the Syrian government may take steps against Hezbollah within Syrian territory. According to him, the Syrian rebels who have been persecuted by Hezbollah thugs for a decade and a half are likely to quickly send forces into Lebanon to undermine the structure of the terrorist organization and damage the connection between its leaders and the troops on the ground.
Kedar noted that the Syrians possess detailed information about Hezbollah’s operations in Syrian villages such as Fua, Mada, and Sar, including the starvation of the local population in 2018–2019 and the clashes with ISIS. According to him, “Hezbollah has honestly earned the hatred of the Syrians.” However, he added that due to the severe economic crisis, there are those in Syria who are willing to cooperate with Hezbollah and assist in smuggling contraband goods.
Meanwhile, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the countryside of Manbij, a city in the northeast of Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria, 30 kilometers west of the Euphrates, is witnessing a major Turkish military escalation, during the past two days, as the Turkish forces intensified their land and air attacks using drones, targeting both military and civilian targets.
This escalation is part of a Turkish attempt to control the strategic Tishreen Dam and the Qara Kozak Bridge, amidst fears of the expansion of the scope of the operations and their impact on the humanitarian and security situation in the region. The number of fatalities in the ranks of the opposing fighting forces during the past two days has reached 101 soldiers.
The fighting has been ongoing since December when the pro-Turkish factions seized Manbij and Tal Rifaat. Since then, neither side has managed to claim any major victory against the other or capture any territory.
According to SOHR, 686 people were killed on January 4 across Syria.
by David Israel JP
Biden Awards Jose Andres "Presidential Medal of Freedom" Andres Posed with the guy who wanted to Assassinate Trump!
Joe Biden awards Jose Andres the "Presidential Medal of Freedom."
Jose Andres was previously pictured with the man who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump.
Blinkin Now retracts and Says that Netanyahu Did Not Block any Deal with Hamas for Hostages!
Blinken:
Netanyahu did not block a deal. Even if Israel carried out actions that delayed a deal but had a rationale, such as the elimination of Sinwar.
(For the record, according to the facts department: Israel did not carry out a specific operation to eliminate Sinwar; he was killed in a random encounter with soldiers).
23,000 "Innocent" Gazans Join Hamas!
Hamas Recruitment Booms Despite Heavy Losses
Despite significant losses, Hamas has reportedly recruited an additional 12,000 to 23,000 militants, bringing the combined strength of terrorist groups in Gaza to an estimated 20,000 to 23,000 fighters.
The IDF continues operations against Hamas, recently destroying a command hub in northern Gaza.
Biden is using every trick in the book to wipe away the Big Stink from his tenure — but nothing is working
Breaking News Alert: Joe Biden to resign so Kamala Harris can become first female president.
OK, it hasn’t happened yet, but don’t be shocked if the president makes the dramatic move to improve his awful legacy.
He’s already using every trick in the book to try to wipe away the Big Stink from his tenure, but nothing is working.
Following the election, Biden has spent two months trying to get people to forget the last four years.
The effort hit a cringe-inducing low this week when he awarded prestigious civilian medals to the undeserving likes of Liz Cheney, Hillary Clinton, George Soros and a list of left-leaning celebrities.
The one consistency is that they all supported him. Instead of medals, they ought to get free psychiatric care.
In the real world, Biden leaves office in utter disgrace.
Beyond his disastrous policies on the economy and the border, he corrupted the Justice Department to go after Donald Trump and was able to keep his job for four years only because the White House, aided and abetted by a partisan press corps, engaged in a massive coverup of his frightening cognitive decline.
IDF worried desperate Iran will make "extreme" move against Israel
Israeli security officials have warned that a change in the regional strategic situation could push Iran to take "extreme" steps against Israel in the near-future. IDF Chief of Staff Herzli Halevi has consequently ordered the military to be on high alert and to be ready for a variety of possible scenarios, Wall News reported.
The concern is that the deteriorating situation Iran finds itself in may push it to desperate measures. Iran's rial currency is in freefall and lost 10% of its value in the first month after US President-Elect Donald Trump's reelection in November. Iran is also facing a severe energy crisis that has led it to ration electricity and to blackouts in much of the country. The regime is facing growing internal criticism and protests among its citizenry.
In addition, Iran's foreign policy is collapsing with the destruction of the military capabilities and leadership of its terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, the fall of its ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and the destruction of its air defense systems following Iran's massive ballistic missile attacks on Israel.
With Trump set to take a harder line against the Iranian regime when he takes office in a little over two weeks, Iran has few options to recover from these setbacks. Israeli officials believe that Trump's policy will constitute a large shift that may change the strategic balance in the Middle East, whether through military moves or economic sanctions.
At the same time, Iran's efforts to maintain its influence in the region continue. Walla reported that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are attempting to transfer funds to Hezbollah in Lebanon using civilian aircraft to help the terror group rebuild following its losses in the war with Israel, including Israel's destruction of banks and vaults full of money reserves belonging to Hezbollah.
Iranian involvement in the fighting in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, along with the economic and political implications within Iran itself, creates concern that Iran's response to pressure will focus specifically on Israel. The IDF is preparing for every scenario, with the understanding that extreme steps by Iran, even with a low probability, require maximum vigilance.
There is also concern that Iran may seek to rush toward nuclear breakout and the development of nuclear weapons if the regime feels that this is its only option for survival or to deter its enemies.
Ben-Gvir: 'I ask forgiveness of the PM and MK Bismuth'
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, discussed the recent budget vote in which his party opposed the coalition's proposed bill.
He stated, "We will continue to vote according to our principles until a solution is found to prevent the closure of police stations, disbanding of civilian emergency squads, and the reduction in salaries of police officers, prison guards, and all of Israel's national security forces."
Ben Gvir expressed regret over his conduct: "After significant soul-searching on Shabbat, I see that I was wrong when I saw the Prime Minister and MK Boaz Bismuth (Likud) in the plenary and we did not offset them. I apologize to the Prime Minister and my friend Boaz Bismuth. From now on, we will offset the PM until his full recovery, God willing."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Ben-Gvir after the vote that passed by a narrow margin. "Today, despite the difficulties, we passed important budgetary legislation for Israel's security and economy. Israel is at war against existential challenges; there is no greater irresponsible folly than shaking the coalition at this time or risking the fall of a right-wing government."
DemonRats Trying To Humiliate Trump Days Before Inauguration... Trump to be sentenced in hush money case one week before taking office
In an extraordinary decision, a judge set US President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money criminal case for January 10, just over a week before his scheduled return to the White House but made clear that Trump would not face jail time, The Associated Press reported.
The decision which was handed down on Friday, positions Trump to become the first president to assume office while holding a felony conviction.
Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan, who oversaw Trump’s trial, announced in a written ruling that the former and future president would receive an unconditional discharge. This outcome leaves the conviction intact but closes the case without imposing jail time, fines, or probation. Trump has the option to appear virtually for the sentencing.
Merchan rejected Trump’s motion to dismiss the verdict on the grounds of presidential immunity and his upcoming second term. He emphasized that resolving the case was essential to serving the interests of justice.
Trump criticized Merchan on his Truth Social platform, claiming that allowing the ruling to stand would mean “the end of the Presidency as we know it.” He also reiterated his stance that the case was an “illegitimate political attack” and “nothing but a Rigged Charade” orchestrated by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office declined to comment on the ruling.
Trump was convicted in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records tied to an alleged scheme to conceal a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the final weeks of his 2016 campaign.
Initially, Trump’s sentencing was scheduled for July 11 but was postponed twice at his defense’s request. Following Trump’s victory in the November 5 election, the judge delayed the sentencing once more to allow both sides to address the implications of Trump’s presidency on the case.
Trump’s lawyers urged Merchan to dismiss the conviction, arguing that it would otherwise disrupt the president-elect’s ability to govern effectively. Prosecutors conceded that accommodations should be made for Trump’s upcoming term but insisted the conviction remain. They proposed several options, including pausing the case during his presidency or finalizing it with a no-jail sentence.
Ultimately, Merchan determined that Trump’s status as president-elect does not grant him immunity equivalent to that of a sitting president. Setting aside the verdict, he argued, would be a “drastic” measure that would “undermine the Rule of Law in immeasurable ways.”
This case is the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial.
Special counsel Jack Smith has since dismissed two federal cases against Trump: one concerning his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and another alleging he mishandled classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
New Orleans attack: Israelis injured were veterans of Gaza and Lebanon
The two young Israelis injured in the attack in New Orleans reportedly fought in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
Yediot Aharonot reports that they were on a vacation after extended military reserve service when they were injured in the attack. The critically injured young man underwent two surgeries and remains in critical condition. His friend, suffering severe limb injuries, is not in danger.
The Israeli Consul in the Southwestern US, Elad Shoham, told the New York Post: "It's tragic irony. They left terrorism in one country and were hurt by terrorism in another. They came here to relax but experienced the unexpected in the harshest way. The fight is against the same ideology, the same enemy."
He shared his conversation with the severely injured man before surgery. "He shook my hand, suffering intense pain in all parts of his body. When people in the US shout 'Intifada,' it means importing violence from one region to another, and that's exactly what's happening. They want to bring violence and terrorism to America. Israel and the US are fighting the same ideology, the same enemy as on October 7. Hamas acted like ISIS, which was the inspiration – exactly like this terrorist did."
With the help of the Foreign Ministry, the victims' families were flown to Louisiana to be with their loved ones. The two will be flown to Israel for further medical treatment only when their condition stabilizes.
Alhatorah.org – a Real Game Changer
by Rabbi Yair Hoffman
Now teachers of Torah have a new tool that redefines the teaching field for Torah teachers. It is a resource which can be projected, copied, pasted, and utilized in many different ways. Best of all, it was created by observant people – which takes away
AlHaTorah.org is a site that offers the Torah texts that we all need in a readily available format.
Their mission is:
Revitalizing the Torah Learning Experience
Panoramic and 3D View of Torah – AlHaTorah.org’s wide array of lenses and modes of analysis helps the learner appreciate the breadth and depth of the Biblical text and its commentaries. By employing everything from Ancient Near Eastern documents to medieval commentaries to modern art and literature, the text of Torah is brought to life.
Empowering – AlHaTorah.org provides the resources, tools, and replicable methodology for active learning, allowing the user to act, react, and interact.
Harnessing Modern Technology – The dawning of the new age of the electronic book has enabled the reimagining of how knowledge can be organized, personalized, interconnected, and continuously expanded. With its tree structured, customizable, ever editable and expandable, hyperlinked, and audio-visually integrated commentary, AlHaTorah.org begins to capture and realize some of this incredible potential.1
Bonding with our Heritage – The reader explores a vast spectrum of commentaries, ranging from the Second Temple period to modern times, all presented in their historical and exegetical contexts. Biblical study becomes a way of reconnecting with the plurality of cultural riches of the thousands of years of our history.
Addressing Fundamental Issues – AlHaTorah.org confronts the challenges posed by classical questions such as the relationship between peshat and derash, and modern issues such as textual criticism and source criticism.
Contract Connecting People through a Social Torah Network
Communal Participation – AlHaTorah.org provides a platform which allows ongoing worldwide collaboration and input from people on all levels and with various types of expertise, in creating the Torah equivalent of Wikipedia and beyond. As the editorial team builds the underlying foundation and structure of the comprehensive Torah commentary, the wider public of all ages will contribute additional sources, insights, translations, and novel interpretations. Vigorous debate and discussion via the Forum will stimulate and foster close bonds and contacts.
Reaching Every Individual from Beginners to Scholars – With the range and richness of its approaches and the customizability of its levels, AlHaTorah.org is becoming a central Torah clearinghouse, offering a product from which every person can gain, and an online learning community in which every person can contribute, discuss, and find meaning.
Contract Impacting Jewish Education Worldwide
Providing Resources for Professional Educators – A good teacher never has nearly enough time to prepare for their classes. The wealth of distilled information, sources, and visual aids on this site will be invaluable in saving countless hours of time, in making material available which otherwise would be inaccessible, and in helping to sculpt better structured classes.
Learning as a Family – Animating the Shabbat Table – Through Shabbat table discussion topics and puzzles for both children and adults, AlHaTorah.org piques one’s curiosity and leads one step by step down the path to deeper exploration of the Torah topics. The family Shabbat table experience will be greatly enhanced.
Lev Tahor Leader Arrested In El Salvador
Jonathan Emanuel Cardona Castillo, a 23-year-old Lev Tahor leader, was arrested last week in El Salvador following the issue of an international arrest warrant against him.
Law enforcement authorities in Guatemala have begun extradition proceedings.
“We received official confirmation from the authorities in El Salvador regarding the start of the extradition process,” said Juan Francisco Reyes, an assistant prosecutor in the Guatemalan combatting human trafficking department.
Castillo, 23, is suspected of having brutally abused women and children as part of the cult’s activities, engaged in human trafficking, and forced minors to marry.
In a statement to local media, a former member of the Lev Tahor cult, who spoke anonymously, said that Castillo’s behavior had changed drastically since he joined the cult. He noted that he had become violent and threatened to kill children.
Uriel Goldman, one of the cult leaders, claimed that Castillo was expelled from the cult due to his behavior and presented documents supporting this claim. Local media reported that he claimed other people had tried to join the cult but were “rejected due to alleged connections to drug trafficking.”
Meanwhile, another member of the cult was arrested while attempting to flee to Mexico.
Congestion Pricing To Launch in NYC – Here’s What Drivers Should Know
New York City’s congestion pricing program will officially take effect on Sunday, January 5, targeting Manhattan’s busiest streets in a bid to reduce traffic and fund public transit. Governor Kathy Hochul’s revived plan will toll vehicles entering the Congestion Relief Zone, covering streets and avenues at or below 60th Street.
The program aims to cut congestion by at least 80,000 vehicles per day, easing pressure in what the MTA calls the most crowded district in the U.S. Currently, average travel speeds in the zone hover at just 7.1 mph, down 23% since 2010. The MTA reports that drivers waste 117 hours annually sitting in gridlock, contributing to $20 billion in lost productivity.
New York City’s congestion pricing program will officially take effect on Sunday, January 5, targeting Manhattan’s busiest streets in a bid to reduce traffic and fund public transit. Governor Kathy Hochul’s revived plan will toll vehicles entering the Congestion Relief Zone, covering streets and avenues at or below 60th Street.
The program aims to cut congestion by at least 80,000 vehicles per day, easing pressure in what the MTA calls the most crowded district in the U.S. Currently, average travel speeds in the zone hover at just 7.1 mph, down 23% since 2010. The MTA reports that drivers waste 117 hours annually sitting in gridlock, contributing to $20 billion in lost productivity.
Details Of Daring Ground Operation At Underground Syrian Missile Site While Assad Was Still in Power ..Revealed
According to a report by Doron Kadosh on Galei Tzahal, the “SARS” Syrian Industries site was the only site in Syria for the production of ground-to-ground missiles. It was supposed to produce 100-300 missiles each year. The site is located deep underground, about 70-130 meters dug into the side of a mountain.
In recent years, Israel has attacked the site four times, attacks that delayed and disrupted the construction work. The site was meant to produce advanced ballistic missiles with ranges of 70 to 300 km, all of which were intended to be sent to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Due to its depth inside the mountain, the site was defined by Israel as a “secure site.”
IDF spokesperson: The intelligence agencies in Israel understood that the site was close to becoming operational and would soon begin producing advanced missiles. The understanding was that once the site became an active manufacturing facility, it would become a much more protected and secured site—where the number of guards and security posted by the Syrians and Iranians would increase significantly. Operation “Many Ways” was an opportunity to reach the site on the ground while security was still relatively light—only a few dozen guards—before the industrial production process began.
The preparations for the operation began two months earlier, in July 2024. A month later, production of engines had already begun at the site. The IDF says: “If we had waited any longer to carry out the operation, it might have already been too late, or the entire operation might have needed to look completely different.”
The objective of the operation was to destroy as many production machines as possible within the underground site, with the highest priority being the destruction of the planetary mixers, the most critical component in the production process of advanced missiles.
Saturday, January 4, 2025
LinkedIn banned ‘proud Jew’ Manhattan CPA for pro-Israel posts
Job networking site LinkedIn employed Nazi tactics when it banned an unabashedly pro-Israel Manhattan accountant who regularly spoke out on the platform against antisemitism, he claimed in a lawsuit.
Marc J. Strohl, who had about 14,000 LinkedIn followers between his personal account and his business profile for ProTax Consulting Services, is a self-described “proud Jew” who lost relatives in the Holocaust as well as the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terror attack that left 1,200 Israelis dead, according to court papers.
Strohl, 59, claimed he regularly reported or commented on antisemitic LinkedIn posts, including messages “that appeared to praise” the terror group and the massacre, as well as “posts on LinkedIn that praised Adolf Hitler and Nazis,” he said in the legal filing.
He alerted the platform to multiple offensive remarks, according to screenshots provided to The Post, including, “Death to Israel,” and a post that described Jews as “cruel and emotionless animals that need to be extinct.”
“Most of the reports I filed against people [whose comments] … were abusive to the point of hate speech,” Strohl said. “They didn’t take any action, to the best of my knowledge.”
His account was mysteriously suspended twice in 2024 until he was banned without explanation in October, Strohl alleged in his Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit against LinkedIn.
“The Nazis engaged in similar such behavior in Germany in the 1930s of excluding Jews from public places and from businesses,” he contended in the claim.
Strohl claimed he was “aware of a lot of Jews and Zionists” who have been banned from LinkedIn.
The problem “is absolutely huge,” he told The Post.
He claimed the company outsources its content moderation responsibilities “to countries known to harbor a lot of antisemitic sentiment including but not limited to Pakistan and South Africa.”
The certified public accountant was “held to completely different and harsher standards than Muslim, Arab . . . and ‘pro-Palestine’ accounts,” he alleged in the complaint, which seeks unspecified damages.
Alleged pro-Hamas sentiment from LinkedIn users was so pronounced in the weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, one pro-Israel supporter created a website listing the terrorist-loving commenters.
“LinkedIn, through its algorithms and ‘Trust & Safety Team’ has refused to take down posts supporting Hamas, criticizing Israel, praising Hitler and Nazis . . . and has responded to complaints made that those posts are not in violation of LinkedIn’s terms and conditions,” Strohl said in the lawsuit.
Being banned from the only notable job networking site around has hurt his reputation and business, said Strohl.
In the past he got significant referrals from LinkedIn — and his removal from the platform has been noticeable.
“It’s a selective double standard that permits antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda to flourish while chilling speech and silencing Jewish and Israeli voices just as they did in Germany in the 1930s,” said Strohl’s lawyer, Ava Zelenetsky.
Strohl wants his account reinstated.
The end of the ‘Obama era’ has officially arrived
You can smell it in the air. A deep sense of betrayal among Democratic voters.
An underlying realization that the Democratic party’s politburo — Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries, and their courtiers of elected official and consultant sycophants — sold voters a bill of goods: the gaslighting of the public on President Biden’s decrepitude; the false idol of the Kamala Harris “campaign of joy” as a smart last-minute stand-in; and the repeated cowering to the far left whose wokeness and moral condescension turns off most voters.
In a just world, one might expect a formal no-confidence vote on this leadership failure.
After all, this is the kind of recall we see with Western European heads of state, in House speakership races, and soon, in Canada. That recall may not happen, but the undeniable trouncing may signal the end of what we can call the Obama Era.
Simply put, the Obama Era is characterized by a set of ideas and tactics directly linked to the Democrats’ loss. The first is the “Demography is Destiny” delusion — a kind of manifest destiny of the left, adopted in the second Obama term, that promises an ever-diversifying electorate would inexorably vote Democratic and must therefore be patronized with cartoonish appeals to identity and big government wardship.
This proved to be not only deeply un-American but politically foolish.
Upon taking office, Biden mandated race preferences and DEI rules across 90 different federal agencies — what leading race theorist Coleman Hughes refers to as the neo-racism of the left.
Open borders were supposed to buy Hispanic votes. Green New Deal wars on oil and gas industries that most of the big players on the global stage would reject were supposed to buy young voters.
Validating the rhetoric of pro-Hamas activists was supposed to buy votes in Dearborn and the anti-Israel and often antisemitic left.
Democrats ignored all the polls warning against these identity politics which never had broad voter support — including among black and brown Americans. But it was too late to turn back.
This post-modern religion had spawned the second pillar of the Obama Era: a new industry of NGOs, consultants, activist groups, foundations and donors, public unions, and the increasingly politicized state and city bureaucracies in Democratic-run cities underwritten with gobs of COVID-relief and federal taxpayer dollars.
They were what writer Michael Lind refers to as the Shadow Government — for whom the liturgy of identity politics became the central organizing principle to expand organizational bloat, fundraise, and earn social credit scores within the party.
This spawning bureaucracy had a profound and often underestimated reach by foisting critical race and gender ideologies in federal and state agencies (e.g. prioritizing COVID checks on the basis of race), in public schools across the country and, ultimately, into a multi-billion dollar DEI industrial complex in corporate America.
However, now much of this second pillar of the Obama Era is now likely to fall to constitutional challenges unlikely to withstand equal protection challenges, widespread public disaffection with the underlying ideology, and the Trump administration’s DOGE scalpel.
The third pillar of the Obama Era is the massive cancel culture and accompanying online authoritarianism.
Former New York Times reporter David Samuels chronicles how the Obama White House conceived and perfected the strategy of using affiliate left-wing public intellectuals to sell often false or misleading narratives to mainstream news and political elites on, say, the deeply defective Iranian nuclear deal, and then to quell dissent with cancel tactics.
Samuels describes an Orwellian machinery spinning an “invented reality that could be successfully messaged and managed from the [Obama] White House.”
This success of this machinery ultimately led today to 70% of voters distrusting the mainstream news media after profound breaches of professional responsibility on Russiagate, the Hunter Biden laptop, and much else.
“As the machine ramped up, censoring dissenting opinions on everything from COVID, to DEI programs, to police conduct, to the prevalence and the effects of hormone therapies and surgeries on youth, large numbers of people began feeling pressured by an external force that they couldn’t always name; even greater numbers of people fell silent,” writes Samuels.
The mainstream media has been its own worst enemy as this third pillar of the Obama Era also appears to self-destruct.
Finally, Israel’s stunning success in decapitating Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran’s arc of terror has laid ridicule to Obama’s second-term central policy goal of Iranian appeasement bought with pallets of cash from the US and an exhortation that secular Arab states must “share the neighborhood” with this imperial, neo-Nazi regime.
That, together with Obama’s red-line bluff on Syria’s chemical gas use, his backing down to Putin on the annexation of Crimea, Biden’s buffoonish Afghanistan withdrawal, and demonstrably counterproductive if not cynical efforts to undermine Israel’s successful campaign against the terrorists, has all left the Democrats looking weak and incompetent not just to voters but the world’s worst actors.
Barack Obama was an immensely talented and often inspiring historic figure with his campaign of hope and change. But the political and cultural offspring of his White House that even he himself was often unable to contain, has helped lead the party to a truly dark and defeated corner.
Julian Epstein is the former Democratic chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee.
Uber, Lyft spent millions pushing for NYC congestion pricing —and stand to make killing
Uber and Lyft poured millions of dollars into efforts to legalize congestion tolling — and they stand to be among the biggest winners.
Uber spent $2 million alone from 2015 to 2019 to promote congestion pricing, roughly $1 million of which went to some of the city’s top lobbyists, the company confirmed to The Post in 2019.
Since then, both and Uber and Lyft have continued to hire top lobbyists to help persuade key state and city officials to approve the controversial levy, including Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, records show.
It’s unclear how much the companies spent lobbying for congestion pricing because the lobbyists hired worked on multiple issues, and officials records don’t break it down.
The ride-share companies declined to provide The Post a breakdown — or even an estimate — of its lobbying expenses.
Lyft — which also own the CitiBike program — has also directly contributed to pols who have been pushing the polarizing scheme.
Lyft poured over $125,000 into state campaigns since 2020 – including $18,500 the past four years to Hochul, who pushed it forward after a brief pause near the election, records show.
It also donated $10,000 in 2020 to then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who backed congestion pricing when he was in office but now wants to hit the brakes on it.
It’s been money well spent.
The growing industry — which got a huge boost last year when the city lifted a cap on how many for-hire vehicles can be on the road — stands to make a killing because the new surcharge is both cheaper than the $9 fee private vehicles will pay to enter parts of Manhattan, and the $2.90 straphangers pay to take subways and buses, critics say.
The ride-hailing services will be slapped with an additional $1.50 surcharge for Manhattan trips below 60th Street. But the additional costs will be passed on to customers — just like a similar $2.75 “congestion fee” on all trips below 96th Street authorized in 2019.
“This is corporate greed at its worst,” said Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens), who opposes congestion tolling. “These companies will stop at nothing to rewrite the rules in their favor while leaving chaos in their wake.”
The new tolls fit “right into” Uber and Lyft’s “business model to charge a premium for access to the scarcest street — those in core Manhattan” – and its customers will benefit from faster service with less cars on the street, said Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
“The sudden sticker shock here won’t be felt by Uber and Lyft or their passengers, but by the regular driver,” she said.
Susan Lee, one of the plaintiffs in a slew of lawsuits seeking to stop the congestion tolling, blamed the for-hire industry for “pushing” congestion tolling and flooding city streets with its roughly 100,000 vehicles — causing much of NYC’s gridlock.
“If the motivation is to incentivize people to take mass transit, then the new fee for for-hire vehicles should be equivalent to” the $2.90 cost for a bus or subway ride,” Lee said.
Josh Gold, a Uber spokesman, said the company was “early supporters of congestion pricing — and still is — but “government can’t continue to raise prices and fees on New Yorkers and expect no consequences.”
Lyft spokesman CJ Macklin said “we are supportive of congestion pricing and the positive impacts it could have on our city, but it must be done in an equitable way.”
“Our industry has already been paying a congestion fee since 2019 that has generated more than $1 billion in revenue to the MTA,” he said. “We don’t think riders should be double taxed, and we lobbied hard for them to be exempt from this new additional $1.50 congestion fee.”