De Blasio Kicks Out The author of the Declaration of Independence From City Hall

 

Still peeved that the city has no Confederate monuments he can remove, lame-duck Mayor Bill de Blasio is instead ousting Thomas Jefferson from City Hall’s Council chambers.

He hoped to do it on the down low, having his handpicked Design Commission quietly vote Monday to pack the 187-year-old statue (gifted to the city in 1834) off to the New-York Historical Society. Perhaps enough public outcry can stop it.

We’re talking about the guy on Mount Rushmore, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and a statue whose replica sits in the US Capitol.

Yes, Jefferson owned slaves — but he penned the words, “All men are created equal,” that led inexorably to the end of slavery.

City Councilman I. Daneek Miller (D-Queens) told The Post that “for us to really highlight such an individual is really not who we are as a council.” Our opinion of the council isn’t high, but we didn’t think it opposed to unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

How many more outrages will de Blasio try to pull off before he’s finally done?

Mom jailed after refusing to leave daughter’s side at hospital

 

A fiercely devoted Florida mom was thrown in jail because she refused to leave her daughter’s bedside in the hospital — and she’s “not sorry that I made them take me out of there in handcuffs.”

Lynn Savage, 70, was taken into custody on trespassing charges after she wouldn’t comply with visiting hours while her daughter, Amber, was recovering from brain surgery at UF Health North in Jacksonville, news station WKRC reported.

“I could not in good conscience and good heart leave her bedside not knowing how she was going to make it through the night voluntarily,” Savage told the outlet.

Savage said she had been at the hospital that day since 6:30 a.m. acting as an interpreter for her daughter, who is non-verbal and paralyzed on her left side from a stroke.

At one point, a doctor asked Savage to come into her daughter’s room in the intensive care unit to help calm her down after her operation.

“As soon as I approached the bedside, she was fine,” Savage told the outlet.

But when visiting hours ended at 7 p.m., a nurse told Savage that she had to leave.

“I said, ‘I’m not going to leave. I want to stay here with my daughter. Can you call the doctor because the doctor is the one that wanted me here with her?'” she said.

“And [the nurse] said no, that they couldn’t do that. That COVID rules said that visiting hours were over at 7 and I had to leave.”

Security officers then came to the room and asked her to go.

100s Of Lev Tahor Members Traveling To Iran ..declare their loyalty and submission to the Supreme Leader and Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

 

Lev Tahor members outside the Guatemalan airport last week

Israelis with relatives in the Lev Tahor cult, who are currently trying to reach Iran, are terrified of the possible consequences of hundreds of Jews congregated in an area frequented by ISIS terrorists, close to the Iranian border.

 Hundreds of Lev Tahor members are attempting to leave Guatemala and move to Iran. Their Israeli relatives have urgently appealed to Israel’s Foreign Ministry to intervene and US relatives of cult members are appealing to the US State Department.

“If they reach the Iranian-Kurdistan border, it can lead to a mega political-security incident,” the relatives warned. “The Shalit deal will be like child’s play compared to this.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has appealed via the Israeli Ambassador to Guatemala Matti Cohen to Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras, to prevent the Lev Tahor members from leaving the country. They also requested that legal proceedings be advanced against the cult leaders, following the testimony of several Israeli and Canadian victims of the cult to Guatemalan authorities.

Biden's New America: US Records Highest Increase In Nation’s Homicide Rate In Modern History

 

Provisional data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, released early Wednesday, suggest the homicide rate for the United States rose 30% between 2019 and 2020. It is the highest increase recorded in modern history — and confirms through public health data a rise in homicides that so far had been identified only through crime statistics.

The previous largest increase in the US homicide rate was a 20% rise recorded from 2000 to 2001 because of the September 11 terror attacks, according to NCHS.

It is the largest increase in 100 years,” Robert Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at NCHS, said.

“The only larger increase since we’ve been recording these data occurred between 1904 and 1905, and that increase was most likely — at least partly — the result of better reporting,” Anderson told CNN. “We had states being added to what we refer to as the death registration areas, so we were counting deaths in more areas over time. We didn’t have all states reporting until 1933.”

The new data show the US homicide rate increased from about six homicides per 100,000 people in 2019 to 7.8 per 100,000 in 2020, according to NCHS. Researchers at the center noted that the 2020 homicide rate of 7.8 is the highest recorded in the United States since 1995 but is still significantly lower than the rates in the early 1980s, which topped 10 homicides per 100,000 people.

“So, it’s obviously of concern but we’re not at the levels that we were at that time,” Anderson said. “We’re heading in the wrong direction though, for sure.”

California’s Gavin Newsom Bans Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers, Lawn Mowers

 

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill No. 1346 into law on Saturday, which moves to outlaw the sale of gas-powered equipment that uses small motors, primarily impacting the state’s landscaping industry. 

This law follows Newsom’s 2020 executive order that prohibits the sale of all gas-powered vehicles by 2035. 

According to the AP, “state officials say running a gas-powered leaf blower for one hour emits the same amount of pollution as driving a 2017 Toyota Camry from Los Angeles to Denver, a distance of about 1,100 miles.” 

The law prohibits the sale of small gas-powered off-road engines on or after January 1, 2024, or as soon as state regulators determine it is “feasible,” whichever date is later. The law further requires regulators to offer rebates for California residents who switch out their gas-powered equipment for new zero-emission alternatives. In addition, according to The Hill, $30 million is allocated to support professional landscapers in making the switch. The bill’s author, Assemblyman Marc Berman (D-Silicon Valley), told the LA Times: This is a pretty modest approach to trying to limit the massive amounts of pollution that this equipment emits, not to mention the health impact on the workers who are using it constantly.

However, critics of the law cite California’s increased costs to small businesses and the state’s widespread blackouts as significant flaws. 

Andrew Bray, vice president of government relations for the National Assn. of Landscape Professionals, stated that zero-emission equivalents cost more than double the $7,000 to $11,000 price of gas-powered lawnmowers. 

According to the LA Times, Bray also said, “a three-person landscaping crew will need to carry 30 to 40 fully charged batteries to power its equipment during a full day’s work,” which is another major expense for California landscaping businesses.

Lapid With His Mistakes in Foreign Policy Slowly Destroying the State of Israel

 

When Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid received the mandate from then-President Reuven Rivlin to form a government after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was once again unable to form a parliamentary majority, he succeeded in luring right-wing stalwart Naftali Bennett away from his natural political partners. He did this by offering Bennett the only position that would get him to break away from the “national” camp: that of prime minister.

The move was a political masterstroke. Despite having promised over and over again not to partner with Lapid, Bennett grabbed the opportunity to take Israel’s top seat. He did so even with a rotation arrangement in place, which has Lapid scheduled to take the reins in August 2023.

The government that emerged from the above deal was the farthest-left possible alignment that could have been constructed. With every last left-wing member of Knesset, it has a razor-thin, one-seat parliamentary majority that, for the first time in Israeli history, relies on an anti-Zionist Arab party.

Lapid currently serves as alternate prime minister—with veto power over government initiatives—and as foreign minister. The unwritten arrangement between him and Bennett is that the latter will handle domestic issues, while the former will deal with foreign policy.

With Bennett and most Israelis focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines and restrictions, Lapid has been free to operate without much attention or criticism from the media or general public. Since assuming office, however, he has overseen a number of highly questionable diplomatic moves.

Demented Biden pushing Israel to allow opening of consulate for PA in Jerusalem

 

The Clueless Biden administration is pushing Israel to allow it to open its consulate for the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem, a US State Department official told reporters in regards to the meeting between Blinken and Lapid today (Wednesday).

The naive official pointed out that the US still backs the two-state solution and stresses the importance of preventing violence or unilateral steps.

"The Biden administration began with an outright commitment to a two-state solution and we intend to see this happen. We expect cooperation from both sides: this includes prevention of the annexation of territories, building settlements, destruction of property, incitement to violence, and halting payments to terrorist prisoners," the senior official said.

The naive official also said that the US intends to reestablish its nuclear deal with Tehran. “We have had many discussions with many of our allies, including with Israel, regarding America's relationship with Iran. We continue to consult closely with them as this process progresses."

"The United States has stated that it is interested in returning to the nuclear deal if Iran adheres to it and we are working to achieve that goal."

In acknowledgment of the anniversary of the Abraham Accords another state official states that Biden's administration supports normalizing relations between Israel and Arab Countries. "We believe that the Abraham Accords serve as proof of the pros of dissolving prior agendas and barriers between the nations. We are working towards expanding the agreement, possibly to include other Arab countries." She said.

Another issue to be discussed in the meeting today between Blinken and Lapid will be future relations between Israel and China, specifically in trade.

Creator of iconic Chabad menorah accused of child molestation

 

A new lawsuit claims that the man who crafted what might be the most famous menorah in the world sexually abused a young girl dozens of times in the 1990s and that a rabbinical court failed to hold him accountable.

The survivor of this alleged abuse, now a 36-year-old woman living in Israel, is trying to get possession of her abuser’s brass menorah, which is normally displayed during Hanukkah at the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in Brooklyn.

Her lawyer says that if she succeeds, she’d consider melting it down in a symbolic act against taboos that have kept cases like hers from being known.

The craftsman behind the 6-foot-tall menorah was Hirschel Pekkar (no pun intended). After he died in July, an obituary on a Chabad community news site described him as “a renowned Crown Heights silversmith who created the famous Menorah which stands each Chanukah in 770 Eastern Parkway,” referring to the address of the Hasidic movement’s headquarters.

Think Your Spouse is Cheating? Google pulls ads for ‘stalkerware’ apps that let users spy on spouses

 Google has reportedly pulled several ads for “stalkerware” apps that apparently allow users to spy on spouses’ phones. 

The search giant already bans advertising apps designed to surveil spouses — which critics say violate privacy and enable domestic abuse — but five companies were still placing ads for stalkerware through Google last week, TechCrunch reported. 

After the outlet asked Google for comment, the tech giant said it immediately banned the ads.

Stalkerware apps — which let customers secretly track other users’ locations, read their texts and monitor their calls, among other invasive features — occupy a gray area within Google’s advertising rules. 

Google bans advertising apps used for “intimate partner surveillance” — but lets companies advertise so-called stalkerware apps if they are “designed for parents to track or monitor their underage children” or used for “private investigation services.” 

Since private investigation services are sometimes used to catch cheating romantic partners, it’s unclear where Google draws the line when deciding whether to ban an ad.

In a statement to The Post, a Google spokesperson said: “We do not allow ads promoting spyware for partner surveillance. We immediately removed the ads that violated this policy and will continue to track emerging behaviors to prevent bad actors from trying to evade our detection systems.”

One stalkerware company called mSpy placed a Google advertisement promising to let customers spy on “your kids, husband or wife, grandma or grandpa,” according to TechCrunch. 

Another app, called ClevGuard, promised to “dispel any doubts in a relationship,” the outlet reported.

A third company, called PhoneSpector, allegedly said its product would “catch a cheater.” 

Stalkerware apps are more pervasive on Android devices but can also be installed on iPhones and iPads, experts say.

Daily aspirin for heart attack prevention may do more harm than good

 

t might be time to rethink that daily aspirin regimen.

US health experts have urged a revision to the routine prescription of daily, low-dose aspirin to prevent heart attack and stroke, as studies now show that the practice may put healthy adults at risk of other serious complications.

The US Preventive Services Task Force submitted a draft of new recommendations on Tuesday, which remain in review by peer researchers through Nov. 8.

The panel’s report maintained that low-dose aspirin, at 81-100 milligrams per dose, can reduce the risk of cardiac events and stroke, but at the same time “increases [the risk of] major GI bleeding, extracranial bleeding and intracranial bleeding,” they wrote.

Evidence also points to a “long-term reduction” in the incidence of colorectal cancer and mortality, but “results are limited” as to whether the benefits outweigh the risks for healthy patients with no previous signs of heart disease.

The new instructions would apply in particular to those aged 60 and below who are considered high risk for heart disease or stroke. Meanwhile, those on a daily aspirin regimen due to a prior heart attack should decide with a physician whether they should continue.

Cardiac history aside, the national task force now discourages anyone older than 60 to reconsider taking the daily dose, as bleeding risks increase significantly with age.

“There’s no longer a blanket statement that everybody who’s at increased risk for heart disease, even though they never had a heart attack, should be on aspirin,” Dr. Chien-Wen Tseng, a researcher at the University of Hawaii and member of the US preventative health panel, told the New York Times in a statement published Tuesday. “We need to be smarter at matching primary prevention to the people who will benefit the most and have the least risk of harms.”

The advice comes after the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology issued a similar warning with updated guidelines in 2019, suggesting a daily low-dose aspirin for patients already diagnosed with heart disease — but not for those who are otherwise healthy. Their report, produced by researchers with Harvard and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, found that nearly half of Americans over 70 were taking aspirin daily, some of which had no prior recommendations from their physicians.

The AHA also called attention to bleeding risk in older patients facilitated by aspirin, a type of blood thinner and anticoagulant, as seen in previous studies.

Dr. Jeffrey Berger, director of the Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease at NYU Langone Health, called the trend “shocking” in an interview with The Post at the time. His lab studies blood platelets and coagulation as an indicator of heart health.

“The fact that many people use aspirin without consulting their health-care provider is shocking, and likely results from the perception that aspirin has little downside,” he said.

The AHA’s guidelines, similar to the US Preventive Services Task Force update, see that adults over 70 without heart disease, and younger than 40 with increased risk of bleeding, should avoid regular doses of aspirin. Anyone outside those groups should consult their doctor first.