Personal account of
@NYCComptroller
. For a more just, more equal, and more sustainable future. Tweets about politics, policy, and occasionally dad jokes.
OK, lemme get this straight. If
@ewarren
's wealth tax had been in place from 1982, Bezos would still have $49B, Gates $14B, Bloomberg $12B
And we'd ALL have child care & health care. Student debt relief. 4X more Fed $ for public schools
Can we vote now?
Just right,
@AOC
: “Criticizing the Occupation doesn't make you anti-Israel. It means that you believe in human rights, and it's about making sure that Palestinian human rights are equal to Israeli human rights.”
At a Jackson Heights town hall on public education,
@AOC
exhorts the crowd to fight for “public education not only as a right but as a blessing, one of the greatest public goods, the greatest gems of a democratic society.”
.
@NYCCouncil
can show we hear the cries of Black NYers against abusive policing & for a different approach to Public Safety by ensuring that budget cuts are shared by NYPD. I will not vote for a budget that does not significantly
#CutNYPDBudget
-
@bradlander
#NYCBudgetJustice
Barcelona is requiring landlords to rent vacant units to make more housing available, w/the threat that otherwise the city will acquire them an 1/2 mkt value & rent them out as social housing. Time for cities to get more ambitious in our housing policy.
You know
@AOC
stands against xenophobia, against racism, against Islamophobia.
So it’s no surprise she was out on the Brooklyn Bridge against anti-Semitism today. Proud to stand with her against hatred & bigotry of every kind. Our liberation is bound up together.
#NoHateNoFear
I committed to vote no on the City's FY21 budget if it did not cut at least $1B from the NYPD. Not moving budget lines around. But real, meaningful cuts.
The budget being voted on tonight does NOT cut $1B from the NYPD.
So I will be voting NO.
THREAD
It has become a maddening refrain, every time she drops a smart new policy proposal.
Yes,
@ewarren
has the best policies, BUT …
I’m done with that “but.” I’m endorsing Elizabeth Warren for President of the United States.
Family members & activists are keeping their vigil outside the Sunset Park jail.
The prisoners reply by banging on their windows.
It is a chilling, appallingly unnecessary, and yet still beautiful form of solidarity.
In Union Square & Prospect Park, Jews gathered w/Muslim, immigrant & other allies to say Kaddish, to mourn, to sing, to pray fiercely. We will never give in to fear. We are indeed like the murderer’s worst nightmare: a caravan, marching in solidarity, toward a world of justice.
Columbia should not be calling the cops on its own students for engaging in nonviolent protest.
The university has a long history of respecting free speech on campus, and I support the faculty who are pleading with their administration to continue that tradition.
No secret that I'm
@TeamWarren
, but wishing a great day to all my friends going to see
@BernieSanders
in Queens today. Congrats on the
@AOC
+Squad endorsements ... of course we're a little jealous!
Looking very forward to when we're back on one big justice-seeking team together.
The US Bureau of Prisons pepper-sprayed a man to death today at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park (where we have protested inhumane conditions time & time again, and will be back, tragically, tomorrow). He was 35.
#SayHisName
: Jamel Floyd.
Mayor Adams is now on CNN, talking about the chokehold death of Jordan Neely. He calls
@NYCComptroller
irresponsible for his tweet calling the incident vigilantism.
Amazon just affirmed they provide facial recognition technology to ICE.
"We think the federal government should have access to the best technology." - Brian Huseman, Amazon VP for Public Policy.
In pursuit of profit, they are willing partners in Trump's deportation machine.
This is McCarren Park in Williamsburg right now. Thousands of people kneeling and sitting in silence. Seriously, listen. Our wounded city is indescribably beautiful in its hunger for justice.
Apologies to anyone who missed the irony in my tweet (I thought the 🧐 would help 🤷🏻♂️)
Here’s a better visualization of crime trends in NYC in recent years - h/t
@cooperlund
One violent crime is one too many. But distorting the data to amplify fears doesn’t help solve problems.
Here is the crowd at Barclay’s Center that the Mayor is planning to impose a curfew on in 30 minutes. Take a listen and see if you think they should all be arrested.
#BlackLivesMattter
My mom & dad are voting for
@BernieSanders
in the Missouri Primary tomorrow! Like me, they were big
@ewarren
supporters & voted for Hillary in 2016. They know we need big structural change & serious attn to rampant inequality. (Sometimes the apple doesn't fall far from the tree!)
This pic was taken before the bedeken. Then we did kiddush, sheva b’rachot & they broke a glass (before dancing a bhangra hora).
Don’t remember any calls to eradicate the Jewish nation. Tho I did recite Quran 49:13 abt diff nations coming to know one another.
If not now, when?
Waleed Shahid recently married Emily Mayer, co-founder of the radical fringe group IfNotNow.
IfNotNow frequently calls for the eradication of the Jewish nation.
Workers at Amazon & Instacart are keeping our economy going & making it possible for so many of us to stay-at-home right now.
But they aren’t getting health & safety protections, adequate pay, or basic dignity from their mega-corporate employers.
Support them today.
NYC is not Gotham. We must not become a city where a mentally ill human being can be choked to death by a vigilante without consequence. Or where the killer is justified & cheered.
Setting a curfew for New York City at 8 pm feels like willfully asking people to defy it, with all the consequences that will likely follow. It is tone deaf and genuinely reckless.
UPDATE: On NY1, Mayor Bill de Blasio just announced that there will also be a curfew in effect Tuesday. That curfew will be in effect from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. - it will start three hours earlier than Monday night's curfew.
Our city needs a just recovery. That’s why I’m running for NYC Comptroller.
So proud to have
@AOC
@ewarren
@JumaaneWilliams
@JerryNadler
in my corner.
But to truly achieve a more equitable future for ALL in NYC, we need you on the team:
Family members, neighbors, and activists will be holding a constant vigil until power & conditions are restored at the
#SunsetParkGulag
. Stop by with food & coffee if you can.
I’ll post what I saw inside in a little bit.
Of course I was excited to be endorsed by
@aoc
and
@ewarren
and
@jumaanewilliams
.
But there’s no question that Rosa’s endorsement is the one that I am most proud of.
Check out our new ad "Dad Jokes" 👉
Today’s DSA rally – which effectively celebrated Hamas’ murder & kidnapping of hundreds of Israeli civilians, including children & grandparents – was abominable.
There is no place for glorifying terror, left, center, or right.
A few thoughts on Amazon (in light of their carefully-timed threats yesterday), and their constant monopolistic certainty that they have the right to make their own rules & dictate them to the rest of us.
Thank you NYC! I promise to work hard every single day to help our city recover from the pandemic more just, more equal, and better prepared for future crises than we were for this one.
“Child care is infrastructure for families.” I never tire of listening to
@ewarren
help us understand the economy — and what really has value — a little better.
Horrific. As we prepare for Passover, Jews around the world have the responsibility to make clear that this is not what we mean by “next year in Jerusalem.”
Our holiday of liberation demands that we speak up.
Just a quiet Saturday night with Gov. Cuomo announcing $10.1 BILLION in spending cuts, including $8.2 BILLION TO LOCALITIES responsible for, oh, public schools, higher ed, public hospitals, fire, police, mass transit.
Celebrating the 8th night of Hannukah w/
@Ocasio2018
and
@JFREJNYC
!
Alexandria spoke abt our need for resilience & light amidst darkness, for personal transcendence & solidarity toward justice.
(I told her the miracle of the oil could be a good metaphor for the
#GreenNewDeal
)
My office will review these proposed budget cuts, but one thing is immediately clear:
Scapegoating asylum seekers will not improve education, public safety, housing affordability, or quality of life for New Yorkers.
@powellnyt
@freedlander
@AOC
It was pretty amazing. I was there today (that’s my shoulder & balding head in the right side of David’s video :-). The way
@AOC
conveyed genuine compassion for the critics, narrated her own experience, and connected it to broader structural dynamics was truly remarkable.
OK, after deliberation, I'm with
@staceyabrams
. Yes, it's deeply depressing to live in a country where so many (white) people vote for racist authoritarianism. BUT: there are many millions of absentee ballots to count. They are overwhelmingly for Biden. We're in for a long count.
Keep calm. Be patient. Allow local elections officials to do their jobs. What is most important isn’t the speed of the count; it’s that every eligible vote is counted. Americans made their voices heard in record numbers, and their votes must be counted.
#Election2020
The unmarked van into which plainclothes NYPD officers grabbed a protestor puts NYers safety at risk by speeding in school zones, running red lights & parking in bus lanes. And then fails to pay the violations.
But no one thinks the driver should be kidnapped off the street.
@bradlander
#NY_JGB1864
has been queried 394 times.
Total parking and camera violation tickets: 22
9 | School Zone Speed Camera Violation
8 | Bus Lane Violation
2 | Mobile Bus Lane Violation
1 | No Standing - Except Truck Loading/Unloading
1 | Fire Hydrant
1 | Failure To Stop At Red Light
Rabbi
@JoshuaMZStanton
says the prayer over the Shabbat candles at
#Lights4Liberty
& makes clear why we are observing it here with our immigrant neighbors:
“There cannot be a Shabbat Shalom (a sabbath of peace) when there are kids in cages.”
Governor Cuomo should have resigned in March.
He should resign now.
If he does not, he should be impeached.
If he is not, he should be defeated at the polls.
A bloated police department that sends hundreds of cops in riot gear to enforce a curfew but has failed to stop rising shootings is a failure of public safety.
A 10 year old was shot and killed in Queens yesterday. More NYPD ≠ more safety.
If you're calling our office today to complain that your right to free, city-provided, car-storage (avail 24/7 w/o interruption) is more important than educating our kids & keeping teachers safe during pandemic school hours:
We will get back to you. But it might take a while.
Spent some time reading about "what comes next."
Short story: We're not close to ready. We're not prepared for how long, how invasive, how economically catastrophic it will be. And we probably can't count on the federal gov't to get us there.
So we better get moving. 1/
Sunday eve
@LocalProgress
calls w/progressive local elected officials across the country working to center equity in COVID response were already one of the bright spots of this dark time.
Thanks
@AOC
for joining tonight's call on housing justice & helping light the way forward.
In the fall, catch basins grates can get clogged w/ leaves & debris. With heavy rain expected tonight, if you can, check nearby catch basins & clear the grates (wear gloves & watch for traffic!). Clearing the grates will help them take in as much rain as possible. Stay safe NYC!
How dare you,
@nydems
?! Smearing
@CynthiaNixon
(whose kids are being raised Jewish, BTW) as soft on anti-Semitism & lying about her position on Israel in order to fearmonger and shill for votes is a shameful dead-end for our party.
#BeyondThePale
#Jews4Cynthia
A white supremacist spouting xenophobic views aligned with those of the President murdered 20 people today with an assault rifle that every sane country bans, but that the GOP protects.
Their thoughts & prayers aren’t simply worthless.
They are a large part of what caused it.
So tired of Twitter amplifying our worst tribal selves. But now these things must be said: I support the self-determination & human rights of Palestinians. Denying their existence is a form of Islamophobia. And a dead-end for those who care about a Jewish & democratic Israel, too
Listening to
@kunoorojha
(who was
@ewarren
organizing director) tell her story on the
@WorkingFamilies
Party call as we move to support
@BernieSanders
tonight brought me to tears.
We organize because our personal pain compels us to find solidarity in action together.
#NotMeUs
Would not matter if he had been jailed pending serious charges. No one deserves a death sentence.
But it is telling of the injustice of our criminal punishment system that the first fatality among Rikers inmates was there on a technical parole violation.
You won’t be the least bit surprised to learn that I got all choked up watching
@RosaBLander
head to her senior prom.
But how about when you hear she made this stunning suit to wear to it?
Police Misconduct Records Are Secret. Protests May Finally Change That.
Hopefully this week. Thanks
@changethenypd
for organizing on this for years. And everyone who's in the streets pushing it over the line.
#Repeal50A
“We are federal agents, we are part of the Department of Homeland Security, and we’re here to, you know, give a hand to the NYPD”
Very troubling video from 88th Pct in BK tonight , from “Andy,” who acknowledges that some of the agents on site are involved in immigrant detention.
The subway ovepolicing we’ve been watching in recent days shows how cruel & corrosive criminalizing poverty is.
We don’t want to be a city where we pay public servants to arrest churro vendors.
But we are.
Thanks
@SofiaBNewman
for standing up for her, and our better selves.
Tonight as I was leaving Broadway Junction, I saw three or four police officers (one of them was either a plainclothes cop or someone who worked at the station) gathered around a crying woman and her churro cart. Apparently, it's illegal to sell food inside train stations. 1/?
With the delta variant driving up Covid infection rates, it's time for NYC to start requiring vaccination for some activities & jobs.
Amid high polarization & low social trust, it's not easy to have a thoughtful conversation about. But we need to.
Companies that decide not to operate in settlements do not pose a risk to New York’s pension funds.
If anything, continuation of the occupation poses grave ongoing risks to Israelis, to Palestinians, & to those who care about them.
My statement on NYS CRF's letter to Unilever:
We must act far more urgently & collectively today.
@NYCMayor
&
@NYGovCuomo
must move together today to close schools, non-essential businesses incl. restaurants & bars, implement aggressive social distancing. And then prepare for what’s coming.
#shutdownNYC
I’ve gotten many thousands of complaints about subway service. About public safety. About safe streets. About housing affordability.
Literally no one has ever complained to me about unlicensed churro-selling
“No one has ever came up to me and said ‘you know what our problem is? People selling unlicensed food.’” - Councilman
@bradlander
addressing reporters outside Broadway Junction station.
#newmarkjreports
Wow. Unprecedented call from NYC Board of Correction (the independent oversight body for NYC's jails) calling on the City to rapidly decrease its jail population.
Please
@NYCMayor
, act now before it is (even more) too late.
The 175-year-old Brooklyn Hospital — where Walt Whitman brought peaches & poems to comfort the Civil War wounded and Dr. Anthony Fauci was born has become a war zone.
Enormous gratitude to Dr. Sylvie de Souza and the brave medical team leading the fight.
If Amazon wants to come to NYC, play by our rules, pay their taxes in full, be good neighbors, and play their part in our democracy, they would be most welcome. Just like anybody else.
But let’s be very clear: that’s not what they want.
The capacity of New Yorkers to turn into mobs when asked to have a shelter in their neighborhood to prevent people from sleeping on the street is really one of the most disturbing things about our city these days.
Tobias is 10 years old. He has Type I diabetes, and he relies on the
#USPS
for his insulin.
The post office is essential to his health. He knows it’s essential to democracy, too. You really gotta listen to him.
#SaveTheUSPS
I’m honored to have
@aoc
's support in the work ahead to put government to work for the people & our movements for justice.
Together we’re building a team to win the just recovery & brighter future NYers are hungry for.
Join us!
The brilliance of
@AdyBarkan
’s
@BeAHeroTeam
CrowdPAC fundraiser is not only $3 million for Collins’ 2020 opponent. It’s 100,000+ small donors who found a new way to take action together. The fight for justice & equality is long-term, and we’ll need new organizing tools to win.
This piece by
@BernieSanders
on how to fight anti-Semitism, to love & support Israel while insisting on an end to the Occupation & Palestinian freedom, and what it means to be a "member of the tradition of Jewish social justice" is really quite beautiful.
....they are Anti-Semitic, they are Anti-America, we don’t need to know anything about them personally, talk about their policies. I think they are American citizens who are duly elected that are running on an agenda that is disgusting, that the American people will reject......
It is important to work for Palestinian human rights, lives, and freedom – and I am long on the record calling for an end to the Occupation.
But Hamas’ murderous terrorism does not advance that cause. And there’s nothing progressive or liberatory about glorifying it.
Thank to the young Jews of
@IfNotNowOrg
for reminding us what the Passover story demands of us. Not worshipping Trump like Norm Coleman & the RJC. But fighting against forces of slavery & oppression, and working for freedom & dignity for all.
BREAKING: 10 young American Jews just interrupted President Trump’s speech at the
@RJC
! "Jews are here to say, the Occupation is a plague. Jews are here to say, white nationalism is a plague."
Freedom and dignity for all!
Press release and statement:
A magnificent crowd of Haitian-, African-, immigrant- and other-Americans of every stripe filled Times Square for the
#rallyagainstracism
today. This is America, and no racist President can change that.
This is sickening. Calls for genocide are utterly inconsistent with Jewish values, with basic humanity, and also with any future for Israel as a Jewish & democratic state. 1/2
.
@BernieSanders
did a great job showing that you can simultaneously articulate both a sharp & powerful left vision for justice and the need for a popular front against fascism.
So many
#JewsAgainstICE
are also Jews Against the Occupation.
It is deeply rooted in Jewish values & history to oppose locking up children, whether that’s done by the government of the U.S. or of Israel.
For those who love these places, it’s our obligation to protest louder.
This is an important time for liberal Jews to stand with Chasidic & Haredi Jews. While antisemitism threatens all of us, the antisemitic hate crimes of recent days have been on visibly Orthodox Jewish communities. We need to see it and name it.
To
@jonnyalvarez
and other constituents writing today:
I will vote NO on the NYC budget if it does not include at least $1B in real cuts to the NYPD’s FY21 expense budget.
Not reshuffling budget lines, but real, meaningful cuts per
@changethenypd
and other advocates.
@bradlander
Will you commit to vote NO on NYC budget if it doesn’t CUT AT LEAST $1B from NYPD's bloated $6B FY21 budget - & REDIRECT the $2B+ in savings to communities devastated by COVID-19 & police violence?
I'm your constituent.
#DefundNYPD
#NYCBudgetJustice
Hard to understand the purpose of this NYPD helicopter circling very low & loud over a totally peaceful, youth-led
#Juneteenth
march as anything other than infuriating the protestors (and ruining a lovely day in
@prospect_park
for everyone else). Zero public safety function.
Really grateful to
@NYCSanitation
workers picking up garbage on my block this a.m.
A pandemic really makes you extra-mindful of every piece of the infrastructure that holds our city together.
(Glad these guys get decent wages & benefits. Let’s also pay attn to all who don’t.)