blockpardi

The future is automated and decentralized.

[Hon. Vickie Paladino @VickieforNYC]

My official statement on the budget, as read in chambers this evening, before I was muted:

"I’ve been a member of this city council going on five years now. And I’ve voted yes on the budget every year so far. All of them had problems. All of them contained things I didn’t like or agree with. But I’m not here to demand perfection, I’m here to work with what we have — within reason.

Unfortunately, this year is very different. And I must vote no.

Even in the context of our dysfunctional city government, this year’s budget represents a complete departure from reality, spending more money than we’ve ever spent — precisely when we can least afford it.

We have never seen a larger single-year increase in spending in the history of this city. Requiring not only new taxes from Albany, but pension deferrals and an eight billion dollar bailout from the Governor. And even still, the revenue projections are optimistic at best.

This isn’t a ‘balanced budget’ — it’s budget by bailout. A ticking time bomb.

And it’s the beginning of a fiscal death spiral that our current leadership will not be able to pull us out of, because they lack both the experience and the seriousness to do so.

What will we do next year? And the year after?

The only responsible way for our city to spend more is to grow the economy. New businesses, new private economic development, major investment. That’s how you grow an economy, and get more money into the city budget.

But we’re doing the opposite. Deliberately chasing away everything our city needs to sustain our spending with childish political attacks on very people we need most.

Our tax base is isn’t growing. It’s leaving.

The middle class, the financial sector, and businesses of all sizes are choosing to go elsewhere. And they’re being replaced with low-income foreigners and transplants who require significant subsidies just to survive here.

We’re trading investment banks and small businesses for delivery app drivers on welfare, and nonprofit workers whose paychecks ultimately come from government spending. That isn’t growth.

And when ordinary New Yorkers complain, they’re told to shut up and leave if they don’t like it. And that’s exactly what many are doing.

This is obviously unsustainable. But nobody in this chamber really seems to care.

And what are we getting for our money? We already spend more in real dollars AND per capita on everything from schools to housing to healthcare than anyone else in the country.

We can’t even build a public bathroom for less than three million dollars.

Why would anyone believe that shoveling even MORE money into this broken system will improve anything?

It won’t. I guarantee that we’ll all be sitting here again a year from now, with the exact same problems, listening to the exact same lectures about how the city needs even MORE money, AGAIN.

At what point do we, as a City Council, start to demand results before we allow more spending? When do we demand accountability?

The answer seems to be never. Because this spending isn’t really meant to fix anything. It’s meant to keep the machine going, keep the money flowing into the special interests and nonprofits and the political allies of the Mayor, with no real consideration for anything else.

I realize a lot of people don’t want to hear this, but we are a municipal government, not a sociology experiment or a political slush fund or the United Nations.

We are here keep the lights on, keep the water running, pave the roads, and put criminals in jail. That’s it. And we would be very well advised to get back to basics. Because we’re failing on nearly every count, other than our peerless ability to hand out free money.

Shame on this Council for pretending this budget is anything other than a disaster. I know that my single vote ultimately doesn’t matter here, but nonetheless I won’t put my name on it. I respectfully vote no."

[blockpardi @blockpardi]

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[blockpardi @blockpardi]

@NassauExec Hey @NassauExec, finally something resembling a sorta kind policy statement for what YOU WILL DO as governor of NY. Still had to get in the "Hochul bad" statement, but I'll still take it. Thank you. See, it wasn't too difficult was it? Now do more of it please.

[blockpardi @blockpardi]

@GuntherEagleman Send in the National Guard. Overwhelming defiance of the law requires overwhelming enforcement. She's weak. She's never had to deal with real problems in her life. Show her some actual resolve and she'll fold.

[blockpardi @blockpardi]

@MamdaniWatch @GovKathyHochul did I hear correctly that you're "tightening" budgets in other areas to pay for this boondogle? Have you lost your mind?? I live upstate and I don't want one dime cut for services in my area so NYC can have free crap. If they want it, let them pay for it.

[blockpardi @blockpardi]

@Average_NY_Guy Take note @NewYorkGOP. This is the kind of reasoned, first hand argument you should be putting out for why GOP candidates are good for NY. It shows a deep understanding of the problems, AND asks for real solutions. "Hochul bad" is easy, but look where "Trump bad" got the Dems.

[AP @Average_NY_Guy]

Who Will Build NYC if Builders Are the Enemy?

As a New Yorker Jew, I'm surrounded by people who have been in real estate their entire lives. I am not trying to feed a stereotype, but that's my reality. They aren't activists or online commentators. They are people who bought their first buildings with all their savings, carried debt through rate hikes, fixed things themselves when there was no money to hire, and stayed in New York through high crime, recessions, 2008, COVID, rising taxes, insurance increases, and an ever-expanding book of laws and codes. None of them were promised fairness before they started, and none of them were protected from risk. They succeeded very slowly, and painfully, but with responsibly.

That experience is exactly what is missing from the worldview of Zohran Mamdani, and it shows in every part of his housing agenda. Mamdani has never built anything. He never signed a personal guarantee, never met payroll, never carried a mortgage through a rough month, never had to choose between fixing a boiler now or hoping it survives another winter because there is no cash. He has only operated in a political world where consequences are abstract and other people absorb the risk. When you have never operated in the real economy, it becomes easy to believe that shortcuts are solutions.

It is also why his message resonates with a certain type of voter. The people demanding “housing reforms” are not bad people. They are frustrated renters who feel like the system is rigged against them. I understand the frustration. But frustration doesn't change math. Housing is hard. Ownership is a very slow process. Building anything meaningful in this city takes years of stress, and debt. The people calling for "landlord policies" often want the outcome without the grind, the stability without the risk, and the reward without the years of sweating that every responsible adult who succeeded here had to endure. But it does not work like that.

NYC is in housing crisis. Citywide vacancy sits around 1.4 percent, a level economists consider an emergency. Median rents keep rising anyway, with Manhattan near $4,800 and Brooklyn around $3,800, even under an already thick layer of regulation. The reason is obvious. Supply has not kept up. In a good year, New York adds roughly 30,000 units. The city needs hundreds of thousands more over the next decade just to stabilize prices. At the same time, construction costs here are among the highest in the country, financing is extremely difficult, and insurance is wildly expensive

Mamdani’s proposals take that fragile situation and make it worse. When you cap upside while leaving downside unlimited, rational people stop participating. Developers do not argue on X. Lenders do not protest. They simply reallocate. Projects stop coming up. Renovations are postponed. New construction dies before a shovel hits the ground. The people I know in real estate are not angry. They are disengaging. Some are buying elsewhere. Some are sitting on cash. Some are done entirely. And when that happens, tenants do not win. Buildings deteriorate, supply tightens further, and rents rise anyway.

What Mamdani offers is emotional satisfaction, not solutions. He tells voters that prices are high because someone else is greedy, not because the city has spent decades making housing harder and almost impossible to build. He frames landlords as villains instead of participants in an ecosystem that only works when incentives align. That framing feels good, but it does not produce housing. It produces resentment, fear, and withdrawal.

Everyone I know who made it in this city did it the same way. Slowly, without shortcuts. Policies written by people who never did that do not create fairness or affordability. They create shortages. NYC doesn't have a landlord problem. It has a confidence problem. And a city that teaches people to hate the builders while demanding more building is a city sabotaging its own future.

[blockpardi @blockpardi]

@NewYorkGOP @NassauExec You guys better ratchet up Blakeman's campaign big time @NewYorkGOP. He's invisible right now. No one knows who he is or what his plan is for NY. The campaign is irrelevant. Either fix that, like yesterday, or bring in someone who can.

[blockpardi @blockpardi]

@NassauExec Yes, yes we know @NassauExec. Hochul is incompetent, but what is YOUR plan?? What are you going to do for NY?. We live in Hochul's NY everyday, we know what's wrong and need solutions. Your campaign is irrelevant right now. Better fix that or you'll just be another GOP has been.

[Mike Netter @nettermike]

Sentiments of Venezuelans

I’m going to say this once, and I don’t care if it makes people uncomfortable.

If you have never lived in Venezuela
If you did not grow up there
If you did not watch your country collapse in real time
If you did not stand in food lines
If you did not watch your parents lose everything they built
If you did not have to leave your home with nothing

Then shut the fuck up.

You do not have an opinion.
Your opinion does not matter.
And you don’t get to lecture anyone about what’s happening there.

I’m Venezuelan.
I lived there most of my life until my early twenties.
I watched my country go from a functioning democracy to full blown socialism right in front of my eyes.

This is not politics to me.
This is trauma.

Before socialism, Venezuela was not perfect, but it worked.
There was trade.
There was money coming in.
There was investment from the US.
There were jobs.
There was food.
There was medicine.

My family had five businesses.
We had our home
We had investments.
We had a future.

Then the government started nationalizing everything.
Private companies were taken.
Foreign investors were pushed out.
Imports were blocked.
Price controls destroyed production.
Corruption exploded.

And everything died.

Not slowly.
Violently.

People didn’t suddenly become poor because of “capitalism” or “the US” or whatever bullshit slogan people like to repeat online.

They became poor because socialism destroyed incentives, destroyed production, destroyed trust, and destroyed hope.

People today in Venezuela are not debating ideology.
They are trying to survive.

They are trying to find food.
Trying to find medication.
Trying to keep their families alive.

So when I see people in the West posting from comfortable homes, full fridges, stable currencies, and safe streets talking about “imperialism” or “US bad” or “Trump this or that”

No.
It’s not complicated.
You’re just ignorant.

China is not rebuilding Venezuela.
Russia is not rebuilding Venezuela.
Cartels are not rebuilding Venezuela.

They are stealing.
They are extracting.
They are draining what’s left.

If the US comes in and reinvests
If refineries get rebuilt
If infrastructure gets restored
If imports open back up
If food, water, and medicine become accessible again
If people can work and earn with dignity

Then yes.
Let them take all the oil they want.

Because at least something gets built instead of destroyed.

This is something to celebrate.
Not because it’s perfect.
But because for the first time in a long time, there is hope.

Hope that families can eat.
Hope that people don’t have to flee their country.
Hope that Venezuela can function again.

If you’ve never lived through a country collapsing
If you’ve never watched socialism destroy everything around you
If you’ve never had to leave your home because staying meant starvation

Then again
Shut the fuck up.

This isn’t theory.
This isn’t politics.
This is lived experience.

By Stephen Subero

[Michelle Tandler @michelletandler]

A few months ago, I dug into Cea Weaver's Twitter history because she was Mamdani's housing advisor.

I had a hunch she might get a position on his team.

Well, she did, and she deleted her X account, accordingly.

However, I took some screenshots. Let's dig in.

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

I have been monitoring the Venezuela issue all day long, and there are so many questions yet to be answered (thanks to great Pentagon OPSEC), but the strategic reason for bringing down Maduro has become abundantly clear.

While we ostensibly captured Maduro based on legitimate, outstanding US drug charges from 2020, the real reason for the military operations early this morning is that neutralizing Maduro's Venezuela had become a strategic imperative for the USA.

Under Maduro, Venezuela had become the Latin American crossroads for all of the USA's principal enemies. Maduro was nurturing relationships with Russia, Hezbollah and Iran. Worst of all, Venezuela was eagerly becoming a part of Red China's Belt & Road initiative.

As America's enemies were lining up Venezuela as their base of operations in the Western Hemisphere to cause mischief and destruction for the USA, Maduro was at the same time making Venezuela a crossroads, safe haven and enabler for all manner of narcoterrorist operations, ranging from Colombia's FARC to Mexico's Sinaloa cartel.

On top of all that, Venezuela had become a key player in the illegal alien invasion of the USA, shipping its very worst to the USA in a deliberate and comprehensive destabilizing operation that might have worked had Donald Trump not won in 2024.

Next in importance: oil. The global and regional ambitions of both China and Russia are in large part dependent on the politics of petroleum, and the USA just deprived both of the cudgel afforded by friendly Venezuelan oil. Trump opponents say "It's about oil" as if that was a bad thing. Yeah, it's about oil.

Finally, all of this was in keeping with the most essential and fundamental foreign policy mandate of the USA almost since the nation's inception: the Monroe Doctrine. Operations like what Maduro was running simply cannot be allowed in the Western Hemisphere. Trump was right for falling back on this most basic of doctrines that protects the USA's sovereignty.

So was Maduro seized because of some five year-old drug charges? Yes. Legally--yes. However, like so many strategic issues in the world today, an action needed to be backed by the fine points of law, and it was. But the reality is that the Maduro takedown was a Monroe Doctrine-driven necessity that has greatly enhanced the power and national security of the USA.

Congratulations, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth and the rest of the Trump national security team: you boldly took the steps necessary to defend the USA.

Well done.

[david friedberg @friedberg]

why not just raise income tax rates?

because your real intent is not to just “provide healthcare”.

you’re masking that you are proposing the creation of, for the first time in the 250 years of this American republic, an organized government seizure of private property from citizens.

you’re calling it a “wealth tax” or a “billionaires tax” or “millionaires tax” or whatever nom du jour polls well. but at the end of the day, it’s the seizure of private property from citizens by the government. citizens that earned money, paid their fair taxes on those earnings (53% if they live in California) and are now being told they need to hand over after-tax assets because the government has failed to provide promised services with the revenue it’s collected, and are now re-casting their own failure to be a socio-economic inequity that must be justly resolved... a slippery slope that has never gone anywhere good (see economic effects in USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, France and Norway wealth tax etc.)

the American founders fled tyranny in Europe and this amazing nation was populated by immigrants (myself and your parents) from around the world not just looking for a “better life” but for a place where they could have freedom from tyrannical governments that can take what they want from private citizens. a great nation borne of property rights, the rule of law, and endowed freedoms to believe, speak, or act. these principles led to the greatest run of innovations, successes, and widespread increase in prosperity, for all citizens, ever seen.

the citizens, the individuals, not the institutions, delivered this progress. those who invented, who toiled, who bled, who sacrificed, who took risk and persevered, who led, and who changed the world, are not charlatans, kleptocrats, or oligarchs. they’re what made us all better off. prosperity is a measure of america’s success, not its failure.

it is your principle that is so offensive, as evidenced by the broad disdain for your flippant flirtation with the darkest of human fantasy - socialism. you and other neo-socialists have led so many of us to reflect on America’s history and what it is becoming. that now leads so many to consider, so unnecessarily, leaving their homes for a place where everyone stands up to shout down the principle you suggest. because if your ideas are now considered moderate, it’s clear this titanic is sinking.

that a “simple tax” of taking assets that have been earned, through toil and tribulation, rightly taxed, and preserved, should now be unjustly seized, is your solution to a problem of obvious government mismanagement and outright fraud, tells us that your true motivation lies not in giving people healthcare but in cutting down success and deleting the system of prosperity and opportunity for all.

i don’t care, and neither should anyone else, what the sum total market value of a private citizens private assets might be. it is none of my business and should be none of yours. because, again, once you open that pandora’s box, we might as well study Lord of the Flies … there is literally nothing stopping 51% of citizens demanding that their government go out and seize 100% of the private property of the 49%.

want to give healthcare to people in need? do your job and fix healthcare. make it affordable. want to be lazy about it? then do your job lazily and raise income taxes.

want to take private property from private citizens who have paid their fair share of taxes and legally earned their property, then honestly declare that it is envy, not inequity, that you strive to resolve…

[blockpardi @blockpardi]

@BrandiKruse I lived in Western Washington for 30 years. I left 2 yrs ago precisely because of the degradation of that region by leftist policies. Soft on crime, high taxes, climate insanity, etc. It's a real shame.

[blockpardi @blockpardi]

@GovKathyHochul So "millions" of New Yorkers on your watch rely on government handouts just to buy insurance and you're more worried about the lowered handouts than elevating New Yorker's incomes? This tells me everything I need to about your priorities.

[Greg Price @greg_price11]

This is one of the most insane things I've ever heard a politician say.

Zohran Mamdani declares that New York is a "city of international law."

Last time I checked, I was pretty sure New York is an American city under U.S. law.

[blockpardi @blockpardi]

@KathyHochul @maura_healey @gretchenwhitmer Edited for clarity

[blockpardi @blockpardi]

@MortyRosenfeld1 @EliseStefanik Genuinely curious... how would Mamdani make childcare universal and free?

[blockpardi @blockpardi]

Hey @elonmusk, since the election last week my For You feed is like 90% left wing posts. It was way out of balance with mostly conservative posts prior, but now it's wildly out of whack the other way. Did something change?

[Elise Stefanik @EliseStefanik]

I see in the morning news across the state that @KathyHochul is getting absolutely obliterated for her politically cynical decision to “pause” her insane gas stove ban until after the election.

This is nothing more than an attempt to LIE to New Yorkers and then screw them after the election just like she lied about her congestion pricing commuter tax which she delayed until after the last election and then screwed New Yorkers by raising taxes.

After this election, Kathy Hochul will impose the painful gas stove ban causing energy prices to skyrocket. It will crush New Yorkers making it even more unaffordable. New Yorkers need a full repeal of this and not a desperate political pause by Hochul.

FIRE HOCHUL 🤡
SAVE NEW YORK 🗽🇺🇸