Tag: New York

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free trade & free markets litigation regulation

Free to Advise

New York, law, lawyers, guilds, AI, labor, licensing

People should be free to talk to each other about whatever they want as long as they’re not thereby conspiring to rob and murder and so forth. They should even be able to give advice.

Including legal advice. 

New York State disagrees. 

The Institute for Justice is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to let the non-​lawyer volunteers of a company called Upsolve keep giving advice to people facing lawsuits to collect debt.

As IJ explains, New York State is trying to “protect people from hearing advice from volunteers” who have relevant training. The point is that the First Amendment “doesn’t allow the government to outlaw discussion of entire topics … by requiring speakers to first obtain an expensive, time-​consuming license.” (That Upsolve’s advisors have relevant training is relevant but also superfluous. Even untrained talkers have the right to talk, obviously.)

In 2022, a federal district court agreed with the plaintiff that its volunteers have a First Amendment right to speak and let Upsolve operate as litigation continued. Then a court of appeals ruled against Upsolve. Now IJ and Upsolve hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will step in and put an end to the nonsense. 

We know what this is about: politicians catering to lawyers who don’t want less expensive sources of legal advice out there competing for customers. 

It’s certainly not about protecting those who would have one fewer resource to turn to were this one taken away.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability general freedom

New York’s Pandemic Orgiast

Varma, Covid, New York, pandemic

“The official in charge of New York City’s pandemic response participated in sex parties and attended a dance party underneath a Wall Street bank during the height of the pandemic,” reports The New York Times, “even as he was instructing New Yorkers to stay home and away from others to stop the spread of Covid-​19. He acknowledged his transgressions on Thursday after being caught on hidden camera boasting about his exploits.”

The orgiast’s name is Dr. Jay K. Varma. He served as New York City Hall’s senior public health adviser under Mayor Bill de Blasio from the height of the pandemic panic to May 2021. The camera was hidden by comedian Steven Crowder — of “Louder with Crowder” fame and infamy — who tweeted the video last Thursday.

On the released recordings Dr. Varma says a lot of incriminating things. Bad enough is what others regard as his boast: “I actually was the one who convinced the mayor to make it mandatory,” he says clearly, with the “it” being “the vaccine.” 

He was just as intentional, though, about the orgies he participated in — “to let off steam.” These were not spontaneous events erupting at sedate dinners at his home. The “eight or ten friends” rented a hotel room and bought drugs for the occasion.

If you are at all shocked, the doctor understands. “Yeah,” he says, upon being asked what would have happened had he been found out at the time he was bullying people throughout the city, “it would have been a real embarrassment.”

But more than merely embarrassing. That the public health Covidians were willing to break both letter and spirit of their tyrannical edicts only suggests that the most flagrant orgy was their naked abuse of political power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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crime and punishment media and media people

New York Vigil

Al Sharpton, subway, vigilante, New York City

What happened on a New York City subway train on May 1 was a tragedy: Jordan Neely died. 

Daniel Penny, 24 years old, a former Marine, has been charged with second-​degree manslaughter in Neely’s death, after prosecutors weighed the evidence following multiple protests.

Neely became unresponsive and was pronounced dead at the hospital. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.

“Let’s not forget that there were three people restraining him, and it is vital that the two others are also held accountable for their actions,” argued Rev. Al Sharpton. “The justice system needs to send a clear, loud message that vigilantism has never been acceptable.”

But was this “vigilantism”?  

“Penny claims he and others on the train felt threatened and did not intend to harm Neely,” reported Eyewitness News ABC7NY. Penny physically overpowered Neely “after witnesses said Neely was making threats and scaring passengers,” informed Good Morning America, “but that there was no indication that he was violent.”

Good night! Making threats is one of the foremost indicators of coming violence.

“Officials and friends say Neely struggled with homelessness and mental illness for years,” noted CBS Mornings, “and he worked as a Michael Jackson impersonator.”

Missing from the CBS coverage — and so many other stories — was the fact that, as CNN disclosed, “Neely had a lengthy arrest record … including 42 arrests … and three unprovoked assaults on women in the subway between 2019 and 2021.”

Three. Assaults on women. In the subway.

As one attorney put it, NYC prosecutor Alvin Bragg must now prove that Daniel Penny “recklessly caused the death of Jordan Neely.”

There is little doubt Penny caused the death but was his impulse “reckless” … or responsible? 

Thank goodness for the right to trial by jury.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom

Rumble and FIRE

New York, free speech, censorship, hate speech, social networks

Federal officials feel entitled to demand the censorship of persons uttering renegade opinions about pandemics and elections. Local police officers feel entitled to arrest persons who commit parody against them.

And New York State officials now feel entitled to compel social-​media companies to restrict speech that the officials dislike.

The video-​sharing platform Rumble, dedicated to making the Internet “free and open once again,” is teaming up with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) in a lawsuit to stop the New York law.

The goal of AB A7865A is to force social media networks “to provide and maintain mechanisms for reporting hateful conduct on their platform.”

“Hateful conduct” is speech that some people dislike. Of course, even the most acidulous asseverations are protected by the First Amendment if they don’t entail actual violations of anyone’s rights. Gangsters and terrorists are not legally entitled to use speech, or anything else, to commit robbery or murder — certainly not on the specious grounds that they have rights to freedom of speech or to bear arms.

The new law is not about such things. Under it, if social-​media companies fail to provide ways for users to complain about “hateful” comments, they could be fined up to $1,000 per violation and investigated by the state attorney general.

Clearly, the law would institute a massive incentive to bury social platforms in fines and investigations if they permit the “wrong” kind of speech. The number of those easily offended by others is infinite.

Also infinite? Excuses for those in power to stomp on opposition speech.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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partisanship Voting

Gerrymandering Proceeds Apace

Gerrymandering, voting, democracy, elections, New York

An “independent” redistricting commission established in New York State by constitutional amendment has failed. That means state lawmakers get to draw political districts after all.

And boy, are they drawing them. 

The maps just proposed by the dominantly Democratic legislature may reduce the number of GOP congressional districts from eight to three. But as Adele Malpass explains, these maps “are filled with districts that are shaped like snakes [and] cross multiple bodies of water.”

Although the failed New York State Independent Redistricting Commission sports that imposing moniker, it is really just a bipartisan commission. Not so independent. The commission was set up in such a way allowing either group of partisan members to obstruct things until there is no alternative but to let state lawmakers draw the districts.

That’s what happened here.

Both Republican and Democratic commission members argue that a legislature-​mandated compromise to reconcile clashing sets of maps — a GOP-​preferred set and a Democrat-​preferred set — was thwarted by the other partisan team. The Republican claim is more plausible; they had nothing to gain by letting districts be squiggled by Democrats in the legislature.

Last November, the commission survived a Democrat-​favored ballot measure to kill it, but that victory wasn’t enough to prevent the commission from collapsing.

Perhaps this grotesque gerrymandering will be stymied by courts. It would be great if Empire State voters had the power to enact a more robust district-​drawing commission. But sadly, New Yorkers have no statewide right of citizen initiative.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment insider corruption

Cuomo, Exit Stage Left

Cuomo resignation

Out in a fortnight. 

Yesterday, New York’s governor said he’d resign in 14 days.

Dominating the headlines has been Andrew Cuomo’s sexual misconduct scandals.

“It’s [a] shame this is what the Democrats choose to go after Cuomo for, rather than for killing tens of thousands of elderly New Yorkers through his policy of putting COVID-​positive patients into nursing homes,” we read at InfoWars.

But this is the usual thing to say … at least, for those of us who live and breathe and think outside the usual right-​left continuum. And in this case, it may not be applicable.

How so?

Well, on Monday, Assembly Member Charles D. Lavine (D‑13th A.D.), Judiciary Committee Chair, made it quite clear that the investigations (yes: plural) going into the impeachment of the governor are not limited to matters of sex. Allegations also considered?

  • Cuomo’s “improper use of government resources to write and produce a book”;
  • “allegations concerning [the] nursing home” fiasco; and
  • “that he provided preferential access to COVID-​19 testing to certain friends and/​or family members.”

But Cuomo himself isn’t talking up these other issues, which are critically important for the state he “runs.” In his resignation announcement, he dubbed one such indiscretion literally “thoughtless,” openly proclaiming that he “want[ed] to personally apologize” to a female state trooper who accused him of embarrassing sexual banter and unwanted touching.

Up front, however, was his proud proclamation of his support for “diversity.”

That is to mollify the current cultural left. But he quickly switched to blaming today’s loud and rash (rather than “sound” and “reasonable”) politics — on Twitter.

You don’t have to love social media to instead blame Cuomo for his own most grievous faults.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Fourth Amendment rights general freedom

Evicting Unjust Evictions

Good news: New York City businessmen can no longer be threatened with eviction and forced to forfeit their rights for the crime of . . . well, for no crime at all.

Sung Cho, owner of a Manhattan laundromat, is one of many victims of an eviction-​and-​extortion racket perpetrated by the city.

For years, business owners have faced eviction because of offenses that occurred on the premises of their business — even if the owner was ignorant of the alleged offenses before they were committed.

In 2013, police entered Cho’s laundromat to sell supposedly stolen goods. After a couple of people unconnected to the business accepted the offer, the NYPD threatened Cho with eviction. Even though neither Cho nor his employees were accused of doing anything illegal.

Cho felt he had no alternative but to waive his right not to be subjected to warrantless searches, and grant police access to his security cameras, and forfeit his right to a hearing if ever penalized for alleged criminal offenses in the future. To avoid eviction, he accepted those obnoxious terms.

But he didn’t leave it there. In 2016, Sung Cho teamed up with the Institute for Justice to sue the city.

After many ups and downs, the final result is that the law so often used as a club against innocent business owners has been changed. Also, the NYPD must obey a binding order that it “shall not enforce or seek to enforce” the terms of agreements imposed under the old law.

A big win for lots of small businesses against tyrannical actions by government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment ideological culture

Theft by Spray Paint

graffiti, New York, property, vandalism

Graffiti is theft.

That is how Heather Mac Donald puts it. “To a conservative,” she writes at City Journal, “graffiti is self-​evidently abhorrent, a spirit-​crushing blight on the public realm, and a theft of property by feckless individuals who avenge their mediocrity by destroying what others have built.”

But that is not how “liberals” or “progressives” see it, she goes on to explain, for they regard marking up buildings and subways and streets and sidewalks as a “political statement,” referencing the New York Times recent characterization of spray-​painting on property you don’t own as “a courageous strike against stultifying bourgeois values” representing “urban grit and resistance to corporate hegemony.” 

With each graffito, Ms. Mac Donald insists, progressives see an icon of “the city’s vibrant, anti-​capitalist soul.”

An interesting political divide. But this rumination  on the “taggers’” art is not random. Mac Donald is aghast that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has cancelled a graffiti-​eradication program.

This, she insists, will lead to more crime, worse crime than mere trespass paintings. It’s the Broken Windows idea, and she’s probably right. Allowing small crimes to go unchecked demonstrates a lack of respect for persons and property, and that trains a city’s population to go on to do worse things.

But the program was cut for a reason. You see, de Blasio’s disastrous coronavirus response has put New York into the red. The city has to cut somewhere.

Mac Donald, however, calls the $3 million saved a “rounding error” on the city’s $88 billion budget. She imputes to de Blasio and others a preference for crime rather than fighting crime.

Maybe. And maybe we add law and order to health and commerce as casualties of the pandemic panic.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets ideological culture

Served and Disserved, New York Style

Pizza, DeBlasio, New York, New Year,

“Jacking up your prices on people trying to celebrate the holidays? Classy, @dominos,” tweeted former presidential aspirant and current New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“To the thousands who came to Times Square last night to ring in 2020,” continued  Hizzoner’s New Year’s Day message from his official city Twitter account, “I’m sorry this corporate chain exploited you — stick it to them by patronizing one of our fantastic LOCAL pizzerias.”

Were you standing there in the Big Apple on New Year’s Eve getting “exploited”?

For the last 15 years, a Midtown Manhattan Domino’s franchise has been delivering hot pepperoni, cheese and onion pizzas for $30 each — “more than twice the regular $14.49 price of a large cheese pie” — to the “hungry tourists waiting in holding pens for the ball drop,” The New York Post reported.

“I have a lot of orders. I’m very busy,” remarked Ratan Banik, the Domino’s delivery man. The paper explained that he was “mobbed by starving tourists … many having camped out overnight.”

“He is our Santa,” offered one New Jersey man, who had not thought to bring any food with him into the city. “It’s absolutely worth it. It was hot. It seems like it just came out of the oven.

“If he comes back,” he added. “I will buy some more.”

“How is this different to a million other things? Airlines, Uber, property,” noted one of many tweets mocking the mayor’s. “It’s called supply and demand.”

If this be exploitation, make the most of it — with or without the extra toppings. 

Just hold the snipes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Pizza, DeBlasio, New York, New Year,

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general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall

Today’s Trifecta

vote, election, initiative, referendum, Washington, New York,

Three measures on ballots today are particularly worth watching.

Two issues in Washington State represent the only citizen-​initiated measures out of 32 propositions voters will see in eight states: Washington Referendum 88 allows voters to re-decide the issue of racial and gender preferences, so-​called “affirmative action,” while Washington Initiative 976 offers voters a chance to cap their vehicle taxes.

More than two decades ago, in 1998, Washingtonians passed Initiative 200 to end racial and gender preferences in state employment and education. This year, the state legislature enacted a virtual repeal of I‑200, by allowing the state to employ such a preference provided it was not the “only factor” used. 

Washington’s vibrant Asian-​American community, which stands to be discriminated against should affirmative action return, rose up to petition Referendum 88 onto the ballot. A “yes” vote upholds the legislature’s new pro-​preference policy; a “no” vote restores the prior voter-​enacted policy prohibiting such preferences. 

Initiative 976 is yet another effort from Tim Eyman, the state’s most prolific initiative practitioner. “This measure,” as the official summary states, “would repeal or remove authority to impose certain vehicle taxes and fees; limit state and local license fees to $30 for motor vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or less, except charges approved by voters …”

Like virtually every Eyman initiative, powerful opponents have dramatically outspent supporters — by greater than a 6‑to‑1 margin — funding ads that have been less than truthful. Additionally, government officials have broken campaign laws in pushing a “no” vote.

Nonetheless, a mid-​October poll showed 48 percent of voters support I‑976 against 37 percent who oppose it. Could Eyman again thwart the state’s behemoth Blue Establishment?

Lastly, New York City voters will decide a ballot question on whether to use ranked choice voting in future primary and special elections for mayor, city council and other offices. It would mark a major victory for a reform growing in popularity.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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