Thursday, June 6, 2024
Hochul ditches hated congestion pricing plan in stunning reversal
Gov. Kathy Hochul ditched the MTA congestion pricing plan indefinitely Wednesday — saying it’s not the right time as New Yorkers face a cost-of-living crisis.
Hochul announced plans to delay the $15 toll’s June 30 start date, citing the “undue strain on already stressed New Yorkers” grappling with inflation.
“Let’s be real: a $15 charge may not mean a lot to someone who has the means, but it can break the budget of a working- or middle-class household,” she said in a pre-taped video announcement. “It puts the squeeze on the very people who make this city go.
“I cannot add another burden to working middle class New Yorkers or create another obstacle to our continued economic recovery” from the COVID pandemic, she added.
The Democrat, who is likely to run for reelection in two years, had faced mounting public pressure over the dreaded toll, which would have charged drivers entering Manhattan below 60th Street.
“I think the Post spotlighting the real concerns of working New Yorkers definitely impacted the conversation. It’s tone-deaf to charge New Yorkers $3,600 every year when they can’t afford to put food on the table,” a source familiar with the governor’s thinking said.
“She just doesn’t think we can ask New Yorkers to pay a new fee at a time when the cost of living has gone up so dramatically.”
Another source close to Hochul’s office added: “The governor is concerned about the economic recovery in Manhattan and the cost of living. New Yorkers are struggling. It’s not the right time to do it.”
A delay in the congestion pricing plan start date does not require legislative approval. But the state Senate and Assembly would have to approve legislation to make up for the subsequent revenue loss to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which had been slated to receive roughly $1 billion in revenue a year from the congestion plan.
Hochul’s office didn’t say how it intends to replace the funds, but sources told The Post it potentially could entail increasing taxes on Big Apple businesses by adjusting the state’s payroll mobility tax.
Such a change would require action by state lawmakers, who would have to move extremely quickly to pass legislation before they hightail it out of Albany for the year at the end of this week.
Another option could be to tap into the state’s reserves, sources said.
Aleksander Janik "Personal Shopper for The Stars" Beats the crap out of Rav Chesky Wolff
The man who bashed a New York City rabbi and knocked his yarmulke off his head outside the Chelsea Hotel is a personal shopper to the stars who has hobnobbed with the likes of Celine Dion, Rhianna, Brooke Shields and Mayor Eric Adams.
Aleksander Janik freely admitted to The Post on Wednesday that he thumped Rabbi Chezky Wolff outside the Chelsea Hotel, “Yes, I pushed him. I pushed him with my bag.”
But, video of the incident from Tuesday night reveals it was much more than a push — it show Janik swinging his heavy bag and smacking the rabbi.
The force knocks his glasses off his face and sends his yarmulke sailing into the nearby bushes.
But, Janik claimed he was defending himself after being harassed. And said he isn’t an antisemite — saying that he’s “half Jewish.”
He denied Wolff’s claim that Janik shouted “dirty Jews” during the dispute — which started when his off-leash dog Hudson approached the door of Chelsea Shul.
“I didn’t say that. Absolutely not. I never used this word. That’s not my nature. I support the Jewish community. I’m a very huge fan of every religion,” Janik said.
Janik said that after the pair exchanged words about the dog, Wolff started following him and recording.
“I protect my dog and myself. A stranger man who’s following me with their phone in my face, I ought to protect myself. I don’t know him,” Janik said.
“When he opened the door, he was very angry, upset. I don’t know why. It’s just a dog. It’s not like you can be upset at a dog.”
He said he lashed out and hit the rabbi to send a message: “Please go away. Don’t harass me. He was just constantly behind me and it was just inappropriate to follow me with his phone.”
Surveillance footage exclusively obtained by The Post shows Janik first slap a phone out of Wolff’s hand before slugging Wolff in the head with his tote bag as dumbfounded diners watch on.
Janik, with his unleashed dog at his heels, walks off seemingly unbothered, leaving Wolff grabbing at his head and picking his belongings off the sidewalk.
Janik’s social media accounts are littered with pictures of him with famous faces. He posts photos of glitzy events and art galleries.
His Instagram account opens with the message: “‘Ubuntu’ is an ancient African word meaning ‘humanity to others.'”
Janik told The Post out that his mother was Jewish, though he himself doesn’t practice any Judaic traditions.
Wolff’s lawyer, Carey London, scoffed at the deflection: “We have no response to an antisemite’s lies. Again – the Jewish people just want peace.”
Wolff was left with a small mark on his head, but no serious injuries
Cops and paramedics responded, but no arrests in the case had been made as of Wednesday evening.
Faroud on June 1-2, 1941 when Jews were murdered for no other reason than being Jews
This article below that just went viral hits me with such sadness, and not because of the incident itself, which in itself was horrific, but because of the Satmar propaganda machine that denies it and keeps pushing the idea that Arabs lived good with the Jews prior to the State. Just this week Der Goy wrote an extensive article on how Jews and Arabs lived great together, the Neturei Karta Branch of Satmar is now pushing this lie more than ever!
One of the readers of DIN believes the Satmar BS, though he himself is not Satmar and lived as a teenager on the West Coast and made aliya to Israel over 50 years ago! He actually comes from a Modern Orthodox Home and his family are scholars. A while ago he argued that if it wasn't for the establishment of the "medina" Jews would have lived great with the Arabs!
That argument is flawed on so many levels, one just has to google and read about the murder and rape of Jews by Arabs going back over a thousand years.
But let's for a minute take his side that Arabs expelled the Jews from their countries because of the establishment of the State in 1948. If they in fact "lived good together," why would a country like Iraq which is situated 867 kilometers from Israel care that a Jewish State was established? What is it to them?
Keep in mind that "they lived good together" Would they have cared that another country, say, Jordan. was established?
In fact, it was established at the same time, in 1948, so did Iraq expel its Jordanians? Of course not, it doesn't even make any sense! What does make sense is the truth and nothing but the truth, that the Arabs hated the Jews living amongst them all the time and were just looking for an excuse to expel them!
Why did England expel their Jews in 1290? Because of the Zionists? Why did Spain expel Jews in 1492, why did Portugal expel its Jews in 1497? Sicily in 1492? Because of the Zionists?
Why don't you read world history and you will see that "they lived good together?"
What does "living good together even mean?" The answer is that it means nothing that it's a lie! The Jews in Germany also "lived good together" prior to Hitler's getting elected!
Satmar and its supporters use this "living good together" lie to besmirch the only Jewish State.
And I am going to go out on a limb and say the following:
Should the Democrats, G-d Forbid, remain in the White House in 2024, Satmar will say in 2026, "you know, we lived good together" but not before they are expelled from their "safe" enclave in KJ and Williamsburg!
A vast Jewish Diaspora underwent a process of communal annihilation prior to Israel’s establishment, one that continued during Israel’s formative years, yet we Israelis rarely talk about or commemorate these historic events. On the eve of the establishment of the State of Israel, at least 800,000 Jews lived in Arab countries. Today, those ancient Jewish Diasporas number only a few thousand at best. These numbers alone should give us pause:
Emigration of more than 99 percent of the Jewish population in such a short time is unparalleled in modern Jewish history. Even the Jewish communities of Europe, which experienced the most extreme suffering of anti-Semitic violence, did not vanish entirely, or so abruptly.
The story of the Jews from Arab lands is a saga that extends over a thousand years and over a vast geographic region.
More than 800,000 Jews lived in the countries of the Arab world at the time of Israel’s founding. Virtually all of them fled or were forced out of their homes and communities after Israel’s establishment with more than three-quarters of these Jewish refugees moving to Israel. The once-thriving communities they had established in places such as Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Tunisia shrunk and, in some cases, virtually disappeared. The Jews of these Arab nations were forced to leave behind most if not all of their property and businesses with no compensation other than being allowed to remain alive to flee.
Lieberman: “We’re On The Way To A Holocaust”
Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman said on Wednesday morning that Iran is planning a holocaust for Israel in another two years.
Speaking in an interview with Army Radio, Liberman began with one of his characteristic attacks: “Apart from spouting slogans, Netanyahu did nothing on the Iranian issue – the failure there is bigger than on October 7.”
“We are amid an Iranian extermination plan,” Lieberman said, adding that Iran will soon have nuclear power, which will then provide it with the deterrence needed to attack Israel within two years.
“Israel will be attacked with the aim of destroying it from several fronts with tens of thousands of missiles at the same time. They are planning a holocaust for us in the next two years.”
“They are working there on a comprehensive attack plan on Israel. It’s not a secret, they don’t hide it. We’re on the way to a holocaust.”
Earlier this week, Lieberman was interviewed on Radio 103FM and made similar statements: “First of all, the State of Israel must understand that Iran is planning an all-out attack within two years, the entire axis of evil against the State of Israel.”
He elaborated by saying that it will be “a coordinated attack from Iran itself, from Lebanon by Hezbollah, from the Gaza Strip by Hamas, from Syria by Shiite militias from Iraq, from Yemen by the Houthis, and of course, they will try to flare up Yehudah and Shomron for us as well.”
Wall Street Journal Questions Biden's Sanity
The Wall Street Journal published an article on Tuesday evening questioning US President Joe Biden’s mental acuity and memory, providing detailed examples from multiple sources.
“When President Biden met with congressional leaders in the West Wing in January to negotiate a Ukraine funding deal, he spoke so softly at times that some participants struggled to hear him, according to five people familiar with the meeting. He read from notes to make obvious points, paused for extended periods and sometimes closed his eyes for so long that some in the room wondered whether he had tuned out.
In a February one-on-one chat in the Oval Office with House Speaker Mike Johnson, the president said a recent policy change by his administration that jeopardizes some big energy projects was just a study, according to six people told at the time about what Johnson said had happened. Johnson worried the president’s memory had slipped about the details of his own policy.
Last year, when Biden was negotiating with House Republicans to lift the debt ceiling, his demeanor and command of the details seemed to shift from one day to the next, according to then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and two others familiar with the talks. On some days, he had loose and spontaneous exchanges with Republicans, and on others he mumbled and appeared to rely on notes.
This article is based on interviews with more than 45 people over several months.
On May 20, during a Rose Garden event celebrating Jewish American Heritage month, Biden said one of the U.S. hostages held in Gaza was a guest at the White House event, before correcting himself. One day earlier, at a campaign event in Detroit, he indicated that he was vice president during the Covid-19 pandemic, which started three years after he left that office. It was one of numerous flubs in the single speech that prompted the White House to make corrections to the official transcript.
In January, he mixed up two of his Hispanic cabinet secretaries, Alejandro Mayorkas and Xavier Becerra. During a February fundraiser in New York, he recounted speaking to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl—who died in 2017—at the 2021 Group of Seven meeting. That same month, at a different fundraiser, he said that during the 2021 G-7 summit he had spoken to former French President François Mitterrand, who died in 1996.
Questions about Biden’s age were amplified in February when Special Counsel Robert K. Hur, who interviewed him for roughly five hours over two days in October during the probe into his handling of classified documents, reported that Biden’s memory had been “significantly limited.” Biden responded in a news conference: “I know what the hell I’m doing.”
Jan. 17, 2024: Ukraine Meeting
With Ukraine running out of munitions, the White House called together top lawmakers to discuss what it would take to get congressional funding, along with the scope of border-security changes demanded by Republicans. The president moved so slowly around the Cabinet Room to greet the nearly two dozen congressional leaders that it took about 10 minutes for the meeting to begin, some people who attended recalled.
Biden started the meeting reading from notes to make broad points about the need to give money to Ukraine, which struck several participants as odd given that the lawmakers present already generally agreed that more funds were needed. Some attendees had trouble hearing him.
Biden deferred so frequently to other lawmakers that much of the conversation didn’t include him, some people who attended the meeting recalled. When questions came directly to him, he would turn to staffers, they said.
“You couldn’t be there and not feel uncomfortable,” said one person who attended. “I’ll just say that.”
Feb. 27, 2024: Biden and Johnson
Just after a late-February meeting of House and Senate leaders about military assistance to Ukraine, Biden pulled aside Johnson for a chat about funding and what it would take to bring the matter to a House vote.
Johnson brought up a new administration energy policy that halts future permits for shipping LNG to many countries, including in Europe, while the climate, economic and national-security impact of those exports are studied. The policy fanned concern that the ban would scuttle new projects and ultimately force U.S. allies to import more from energy-rich adversaries like Russia. The policy also affects several multibillion-dollar projects in Johnson’s home state of Louisiana by denying them, for now, key export permits.
“Mr. President, you are helping Vladimir Putin,” Johnson told the president, according to one of the people briefed on the exchange. Biden said that wasn’t true, and that the new policy was only a study, according to several people familiar with Johnson’s version of what happened. Johnson was dismayed that Biden appeared to have forgotten details of his own policies, they said.
May 2023: Debt Ceiling
In 2011, when Biden was vice president, he played a central role in negotiations with Republicans over increasing the debt ceiling, striking a deal when the country was on the precipice of a default. According to some Republicans involved in similar negotiations with him in May 2023, his level of engagement was uneven.
“He would ramble,” said McCarthy, who led the Republican side of the talks. “He always had cards. He couldn’t negotiate another way.”
The president spoke so softly and with such little enunciation that attendees said they struggled to hear what he was saying, people familiar with the meeting said. He told the same story more than once about his experiences with the DuPont company during his time as a Delaware senator, one of the people said.
As Republican negotiators drove away from the White House, they called a colleague to update him on the talks, according to someone familiar with the call. One topic of discussion: the president and his acuity.”
Wednesday, June 5, 2024
Watch Student Interrupts Principal's Speech Shouting "Am Yisrael Chai" When he claims "military killing innocent people in Gaza"
During a ceremony at a college in Ramat Gan, a student interrupted the principal's speech and shouted “Am Yisrael Chai” after he claimed that the military is killing innocent people in Gaza.
Author Delivers Blistering Response When Forced to Answer Where She Stands on “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” Before Scheduled Speaking Event
Russian Israeli author Dina Rubina was scheduled for an event to discuss her books at Pushkin House in London in collaboration with the University of London.
Before she was “allowed” to speak, however, event moderator Nataliya Rulyova demanded she clarify “her position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” saying other invited participants needed to “understand your position on this issue before responding.”
Here is the note Rubina received from Rulyova:
Hello, Dina!
The Pushkin House announced our upcoming conference on social media and immediately received critical messages regarding your position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They wanted to understand your position on this issue before responding. Could you formulate your position and send it to me as soon as possible?
— Natasha
Here is Dina’s blistering response to the ridiculous request.
Chareidim destroy 80 sheitels in Yerushalayim wig shop attack
Jerusalem police are looking for the suspect in a wig shop attack who destroyed a large supply of wigs for Jewish women.
The Israeli branch of American wig shop, Dini Wigs, was trashed in the attack, with wigs cut up, graffitied, and windows smashed. The estimated damage is over one million shekels (more than £210,000).
In the early hours last Friday morning, an Orthodox Jewish man can be seen on the shop’s CCTV cameras pulling out a hammer and smashing the glass door of the luxury wig shop.
The suspect, whose face is exposed in the footage, arrived with a headlamp, hammer, and spray paint.
At 3am on Friday, security cameras alerted the shop manager that there had been a break in.
In a video shared by Kassy Dillon on X, formerly Twitter, shop assistant Ayalla said: “Someone came in overnight. He just came in to destroy and damage the wigs. They don’t know exactly why. But he chopped up wigs and sprayed all over the wigs with graffiti spray.”
“It was devastating. We put so much effort in to make people look so beautiful and help them cover their hair, enjoy themselves, look pretty and keep their religion.”
Dini has stores in the US, Israel, and France, and caters for Orthodox women who cover their hair, as well as people living with medical hair loss.
Ready to wear wigs from Dini cost between £1,500 and £5,000, but Ayalla said, “It is not only money, it is a destruction of handwork.” The wigs are handmade from real human hair.
Ayalla added, “There is a group of people that don’t want people to wear natural wigs. They want people to cover the hair with fabric and not with hair.”
Local press outlets have suggested that the suspect was acting on behalf of the “chastity guards”, a vigilante gang that operates in Charedi communities to enforce modesty through violence and intimidation.
Israeli police are looking for the suspect and Dini have changed their security system after the attack.
House approves bill to sanction ICC officials over arrest warrants for Israelis
The US House of Representatives on Tuesday passed legislation that would sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) for requesting arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, The Associated Press reported.
The 247-155 vote amounts to Congress’ first legislative rebuke of the court since its decision last month to seek arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel and Hamas. The move was widely denounced in Washington.
While the House bill was expected to pass, it failed to attract significant Democratic support, dulling its chances in the Senate.
Both the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee acknowledged the bill in question is unlikely to become law and left the door open to further negotiation with the White House. They said it would be better for Congress to be united against the Hague-based court.
The Biden administration has denounced the ICC decision but has stated that it opposes sanctions against the court.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said in a briefing with reporters last week that sanctions were "not the right answer" to deal with the ICC arrest warrants, adding that the administration opposes that approach.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who spoke after Kirby, reiterated that message and said legislation against the ICC "is not something the administration is going to support."
"Sanctions on the ICC are not an effective or appropriate tool to address US concerns. We will work with Congress on other options to address the ICC overreach," she said.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Tuesday reiterated the administration’s opposition to the sanctions bill.
“We have made clear that while we oppose the decision taken by the prosecutor of the ICC, we don’t think it is appropriate, especially while there are ongoing investigations inside Israel looking at somebody’s very same questions, and we were willing to work with Congress on what a response might look like but we don’t support sanctions,” Miller said, according to AP.
Last week, a group of 19 pro-Israel House Democrats wrote a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in which they pushed back on the White House's opposition to impose sanctions against the ICC.
Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, Senior Chabad Figure, Passes Away at 74
Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, a prominent rabbi who oversaw several thousand Chabad-Lubavitch educational institutions, passed away on Tuesday, just days before his 75th birthday.
Rabbi Kotlarsky’s bearded visage was well-known to everyone who attended or watched footage of the annual Kinus Hashluchim, proudly reading off the names of thousands of Chabad emissaries during the “roll call,” a highlight of the massive gathering. In addition to being the director of the Kinus Hashluchim, Rabbi Kotlarsky was the vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch. He traveled the world on behalf of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, pinpointing locations for Chabad sites and becoming known as the public face of Chabad in many foreign.
In 2023, Rabbi Kotlarsky was named to the Algemeiner’s list of top 100 people positively influencing Jewish life. Crown Heights resident Mendy Hershkop recalled Rabbi Kotlarsky for his big heart, his humility and the way he cared for every shaliach as if they were his own children.
“He was really a man who looked ahead,” Hershkop said. “Even in the present, he was able to constantly see the future, and see the future in the present.”
Tributes to Rabbi Kotlarsky poured in on social media.
“The world lost a giant today,” posted Shalom Goodman on X, who credited Rabbi Kotlarsky for having “a major part in building thousands of Jewish communities across the world as the unofficial leader of the Shluchim emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.”
“If you’ve heard of Chabad, it’s because of Rabbi Kotlarsky’s work,” tweeted journalist Yochonon Donn. “Whenever I called him he was always traveling – in an airport in Kenya, a bus in India, visiting a shaliach in Wisconsin. Truly a giant among men.”
The funeral for Rabbi Kotlarsky will take place tomorrow in Crown Heights. It is expected to pass by Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway at approximately 1 PM, with burial to follow at 2 PM at Old Montefiore Cemetery in Cambria Heights near the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Ohel.
Bus with Bais Yaakov Girls Crashes in NJ 2 Airlifted to Trauma Center
Footage of the scene of the accident with the Monseytrail bus. Hatzalah members are on scene assisting the patients on scene. pic.twitter.com/ddOGi6ZLSD
— Rockland Daily (@Rockland_Daily) June 4, 2024
A Monsey Tours bus filled with Bais Yaakov girls from Flatbush crashed into a tree this afternoon in northern New Jersey, with at least five transported to local hospitals.
The accident took place at approximately 3:30 this afternoon on East Shore Road, in West Milford. Hatzalah members from Rockland, New Square and Kiryas Joel both raced to the scene, located near Greenwood Lake. Sources said that two passenger were airlifted to a trauma center, with three more transported to area hospitals with less serious injuries.
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