Hellraisers: NYPD skull 🗽 Another Trump tantrum 🗽Vendors rise up
Written by:
Another week, another instance of Donald Trump desperately trying to crawl his way back into the news cycle by inciting panic over Things That Did Not Happen. More on that below, but first, the bulletin board:
- Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg received an envelope with white powder following Trump’s tantrum; it was eventually cleared as non-hazardous.
- Mayor Eric Adams visited Albany to reiterate the need for an additional $4.2 billion to address the migrants coming into the city. Gov. Kathy Hochul had suggested one quarter that amount, but Adams appears to continue fighting.
- A New York judge ruled that NYPD officers can no longer access, use, or disclose the department’s sealed records without authorization.
Two weekends ago, Trump called for protests because he predicted he would be arrested the following Tuesday for paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
TBH, I could care less about the public outrage over someone engaging with sex workers or porn stars, buuut there needs to be accountability for the campaign finance laws that Trump likely broke in paying Daniels off—not to mention numerous other potential crimes, whether it’s inciting an insurrection or manipulating the value of his real estate holding to dodge taxes.
The FAQ NYC hosts break it all down, with Christina Greer pointing out Trump’s “ire for Black people,” as well as for Jews and immigrants.
“We’re so accustomed to this man lying, cheating, and stealing when we’re actually trying to hold him accountable for lying, cheating, and stealing. It’s like: oh we’re just doing the most,” Greer said.
FAQ NYC
Every once in a while, I will face a profound conflict between my not-so-favorable view of Andrew Cuomo and appreciation for something he put into place during his tenure. An example of the latter is a moratorium he signed in 2020 that would ban schools across New York state from using facial recognition software on students.
Three years on, it turns out that there are schools skirting the law by using devices that are just named differently. Semantics, smh.
NEW YORK FOCUS identified 20 schools across the state that are using such devices. A school district in South Otselic, said they are coming at it “from a shooter perspective.”
Rebecca Heilweil
Flushing Councilmember Sandra Ung is facing backlash from locals who say her recent call for a crackdown on street vendors hurts the immigrant community.
“Vending Is Life, We Want To Live,” read a sign at a protest earlier this month, where about 40 vendors gathered to fight back against both Ung’s call for the crackdown as well as the deeper implications of what it means for the immigrant vendors.
The crackdown, should it take place, would be a statement against a neighborhood—especially the famous Main Street—bustling with snacks, produce, and sometimes really hip winter coats that would end up in the closet of someone living in a loft in Bushwick. Or Williamsburg—you get the point.
It would also add to the growing number of tickets street vendors in the city are issued, the highest since before the pandemic, the Street Vendor Project told me a few months ago. There was a 33% increase in tickets issued in 2021 from 2019 (after a lull during the early pandemic). Read THE CITY’s story:
Haidee Chu
Picture this: a senior citizen taking apart his wheelchair and throwing the parts at another senior. This, along with drug use, drug dealing, and theft, are only some of numerous issues plaguing a nursing home in Manhattan’s East Harlem neighborhood.
The conditions are so serious that the security guards working there fear for their safety; a former guard called the place “evil.” The number of ambulance calls and crime-related calls about doubled between 2017 and 2021.
All this is happening against the backdrop of the president of ArchCare, the health care arm of the Archdiocese of New York that oversees the nursing home, taking home an earning worth $1.47 million. DOCUMENTED has the story.
Amir Khafagy
The annex of the NYPD-managed Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, where parolees are required to regularly check in, has removed a poster with a Punisher skull imposed on a Thin Blue Line background.
“I hunt the evil you pretend doesn’t exist,” read the poster, which also had a NYPD logo on the skull.
A mental health caseworker initially posted the image on Twitter and told HELL GATE that sex offenders like her client are confronted with the image as soon as they come into the office. The use of the term “hunting,” she said, further stigmatizes those already banished from society.
Katie Way
🕊️ 🕊️ 🕊️
- Hallie Scruggs, 9
- Evelyn Dieckhaus, 9
- William Kinney, 9
- Katherine Koonce, 60
- Mike Hill, 61
- Cynthia Peak, 61
Once again, we add names to the ever-growing list of people killed in a mass shooting. As an elementary and middle school teacher myself, this hits on a personal level. In the aftermath of the Uvalde shooting, I shared how schoolchildren, despite all their lunchtime chaos and hallway roaming, collapse into pin drop silence when there’s a lockdown drill. Even they know the realities of that siren.
Here’s an excerpt from a note I wrote following the Uvalde shooting:
“I want to believe in better. Or bigger. Or smaller, I don’t know. Whatever is ordinary. Thursday afternoon naps. Or tantrums with your aunt. posing for funny pictures. Ruining a perfectly decent artwork because you thought it needed more colors. Ordinary. Children. Not grieved, just loved.”
🕊️ 🕊️ 🕊
I’ll see you in two weeks. In the meantime: do you want your image featured in our newsletter? Drop me a note: samira@optout.news
The OptOut Media Foundation (EIN: 85-2348079) is a nonprofit charity with a mission to educate the public about current events and help sustain a diverse media ecosystem by promoting and assisting independent news outlets and, in doing so, advance democracy and social justice.
Download the app for Apple and Android.
Sign up for OptOut's free newsletters.
Learn more about OptOut.
Events calendar
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Mastodon, and Facebook.
