Trustafarian City Council candidate caught with his nips clamped

 NY Post

 It’s a late-breaking case of electoral bondage.

Zack Weiner, 26, a City Council candidate running in Manhattan, has found his campaign tied up after video of him enjoying a sadomasochism session found its way onto Twitter.

“My magnificent domme friend played with Upper West Side city council candidate Zack Weiner and I’m the only one who has the footage,” reads a tweet from the anonymous account which posted the video last week.

The footage — flagged to The Post by Weiner’s own campaign manager — shows a gagged Weiner, unable to speak, subjecting himself to various abuses by a leather-bound woman who pours wax on him and clips his nipples with clothespins.

The footage was filmed at Parthenon studio in Midtown — which is known for its high-quality BDSM dungeons.

In a call with The Post, Weiner confirmed it was him in the video and said the footage was made about 18 months ago with a former girlfriend he met during a Halloween party in 2019.

“I didn’t want anyone to see that, but here we are. I am not ashamed of the private video circulating of me on Twitter. This was a recreational activity that I did with my friend at the time, for fun. Like many young people, I have grown into a world where some of our most private moments have been documented online.” Weiner said in a statement.

“I am a proud BDSMer. I like BDSM activity,” Weiner told The Post. He refused to name the woman in the video and said he had no idea how on earth the footage surfaced.

“It’s definitely a violation of trust,” he added.

 Weiner has a professional background in film production and is the co-founder of Stag Pictures, an independent film production company. Zack’s father, Eric Weiner, is a co-creator of the popular children’s television show “Dora The Explorer.”

Kingmaker Van Bramer

 

  LIC Post

 Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer has endorsed Amit Bagga from a sea of candidates vying for his seat in the City Council.

Van Bramer announced his endorsement in the midst of early voting and less than a week away from Election Day.

“In a crowded field, which includes several terrific candidates, I was proud to rank Amit Singh Bagga #1 when I went to vote this past Saturday,” he said in a statement. “Amit is smart, thoughtful, progressive, and has experience in government that will make him effective on day one.”

Van Bramer chose Bagga — the former deputy director of the NYC Census 2020 — out of 15 Democratic candidates on the ballot for the District 26 seat representing Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside and parts of Astoria.

The council member said he would be announcing the names of five other candidates who he believes would be qualified to take his position in the coming days, but wanted to make it clear that Bagga is his top choice.

Van Bramer, who is running for Queens borough president, was previously tight-lipped on who he would endorse as his replacement. However his longtime chief of staff Matt Wallace endorsed Bagga in May and the candidate was spotted at a backyard fundraising event for Van Bramer’s borough president campaign the same month.

 

Developers clean up in a matter of days

Queens Post 

 City officials and local lawmakers celebrated the start of the environmental cleanup of Willets Point Wednesday — which paves the way for the redevelopment of the area.

Six acres of land near Citi Field is being remediated to prepare for the construction of three buildings that will include 1,100 affordable apartments, retail and community facility space. There will also be a stand-alone school and public open space.

The ceremonial groundbreaking follows nearly 15 years of wrangling over the fate of the area that has long been occupied by autobody shops and junkyards. The remediation work begins as the city looks to recover from the economic fallout caused by the pandemic.

“A recovery for all of us is happening right here in Queens,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio at the groundbreaking. “Willets Point represents the best of our comeback – new units of affordable housing, more school seats for our children, adding public space and detailed infrastructure improvements.”

The environmental remediation will remove contaminated soil in the brownfield-designated area and replace it with clean fill. Workers will also raise the ground so that the future buildings and infrastructure will be above the floodplain.

The remediation efforts will be completed in 2023. Infrastructure construction is expected to begin in 2022, followed by the construction of the apartment buildings and school in 2024.

The cleanup and first phase of construction will lead to more than 800 construction jobs, according to the city. Upon completion, nearly 200 permanent jobs will be created.

“The environmental cleanup is a critical step in the first phase of the Willets Point project,” said Council Member Francisco Moya, who noted that New York has been dealing with an affordable housing crisis and overcrowding in schools for some time.

“Today we are taking another critical step forward in tackling these issues,” he said.

Queens Post 

 A large development company has purchased the vacant lot next to St. Sebastian’s School in Woodside for $5.5 million.

United Construction and Development, which has a portfolio of mixed-use buildings throughout Queens, bought the vacant lot from St. Sebastian’s Roman Catholic Church on March 25.

The company confirmed that it purchased the 39-53 57th St. site under the name Woodside 57 Street Realty.

United Construction, located on Northern Boulevard in Corona, is a major player in several large developments in Queens.

It is part of a consortium of developers behind the 68-story Skyline Tower in Long Island City, the tallest building in Queens. It also is the developer of the Justice Avenue Tower in Elmhurst, near the Queens Place Mall.

The Woodside site, once a playground for school children at St. Sebastian’s, is large with a frontage on 57th and 58th streets. The property is 1/2 an acre in size.

On June 8, United Construction filed plans with the Dept. of Buildings calling for the site to be subdivided into 8 tax lots. The company has yet to file building plans.

Brooklyn Bridge cancels vehicle lane for bike lanes

Gothamist 

One of the Brooklyn Bridge's car lanes will officially start its transformation into a dedicated bike lane on Monday, June 21st.

The new two-way protected bike path is expected to be completed this fall, at which point the crowded promenade will become pedestrian-only. The plan was previously announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio during his final State of the City address in January.

"The Brooklyn Bridge, one of the nation’s most beloved structures, will this year celebrate its 138th birthday," Department of Transportation Commissioner (and Transportation Alternatives marionette) Hank Gutman said in a statement. "Over that long history, the bridge has changed with the times – as horse-drawn carriages were replaced with trolleys, which were then retired with the advent of car lanes.  In the coming months, we are going to transform this bridge we all love once again – this time with new bicycle lanes that invest in the bridge’s more sustainable future."

This isn't going to work. And what will happen when unlicensed motor scooter riders take over the lanes (another thing that de Blasio thinks will solve itself, even after a woman got killed by one of them in a hit-and-run).

 

Back to the gold house

 

Impunity City 

Nobody's doing it

 

 

NY Post 

The fiercely competitive primary races for mayor are not galvanizing voters to rush early to the polls, according to the city Board of Elections.

Voters have the option to cast ballots during nine days of early voting offered at more than 100 polling sites ahead of next Tuesday’s primary election.

Through the first four days of early voting, more than 64,200 voters cast ballots in the first citywide ranked choice primary election.

There are more than 3.6 million active registered Democrats and 500,000 Republicans eligible to vote in the primary races for mayor and other offices — or more than 4.1 million voters combined.

That means less than 2 percent of eligible primary voters have cast ballots thus far.

AOC's manufactured AOC wasn't vetted well.

 

 

Politics NY

The progressive darling city council candidate to succeed term-limited Robert Cornegy Jr. in Bedford-Stuyvesant continues to receive backlash and anger over a series of derogatory Tweets he made against the Muslim and Christian faiths as well as women.

As first reported in the New York Post, Candidate Chi Ossé, 23, issued the following on his campaign Twitter feed:

“Bro…your girl smells like a halal cart”.  

In another 2019 tweet, Ossé wrote that “rumor has it” that then-15-year-old British actress Millie Bobbie Brown can “fit 37 pistachios up her ass.”

He also tweeted, “Knocked over one of those Jesus worshippers on the subway this morning…feeling random and sinful”.

The district is home to the Masjid At-Taqwa, one of the largest and most prominent mosques in the borough, and has numerous Arab-owned businesses. Additionally, there are dozens of Churches – mainstay institutions in Black-American neighborhoods – in the district.

When the Post contacted Ossé about the missives he blamed youthful indiscretions and condemned the Tweets before taking them down. PoliticsNY has also received a half dozen other Tweets, also taken down, where he issues derogatory comments against the LBGTQ+ community, police and people suffering from mental illness, among others.

His campaign did not return emails from PoliticsNY seeking further comment.

Ossé is the only candidate in 36th City Council District race to receive the endorsement from U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s Courage to Change PAC as well as from progressive Comptroller Candidate Brad Lander, the Working Families Party and numerous other stalwart progressive organizations.

Prominent Arab-American activist, Dr. Debbie Almontaser, the CEO of the Bridging Cultures Group – an organization formed to dismantle stereotypes through training and consultative services – found the revelations deeply offensive. 

“The tweet found by the NY Post is outrageous! Though you explained you were young and now condemn it, that is not enough! You owe the American Muslim community an apology,” Almontaser tweeted. “A prominent mosque in NYC is in your district. Shameful.”

de Blasio is about to kick homeless people out of hotels where they were sheltered in place during the pandemic...which is still continuing

 

Eyewitness News

  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that it is time to move homeless residents who have been housed in hotels during the coronavirus pandemic back to shelters, pending action from the state.

"Everything is ready to go," de Blasio said. "Obviously, the situation is greatly improved. All of our planning is in place. We know exactly what shelters we are going to bring people back to. We are ready to go. What we need is authorization from the state of New York."

 When the pandemic started, the city moved more than 12,000 homeless people out of crowded shelters and into more than 60 hotels to keep them safe and socially distanced.

 However, concerned neighbors have said that while the city fixed one problem, it created another -- including huge quality of life issues in the surrounding neighborhoods.

De Blasio said the city asked for authorization from the state on May 18 but has not yet received it.

"We have not yet gotten that sign off from the state of New York," he said. "Obviously given yesterdays announcement, in particular, it is time to get that clear signoff from the state to move forward."

Taxpayers have been footing the bill of roughly $1 million per night to house the homeless.

Eyewitness News 

 The CDC is now calling the Delta variant, which was first detected in India, a "variant of concern."

The new label raises the profile of the variant significantly. Before, the agency marked the variant as one "of interest."

An alarming rise in infections attributed to the strain inside the U.S. is a warning to communities with low vaccination rates, and recent estimates are that 10% of infections in the U.S. are caused by the Delta variant - a more than 60% increase in this month alone.

CDC reserves the label for variants when there is "evidence of an increase in transmissibility, more severe disease, significant reduction in neutralization by antibodies generated during previous infection or vaccination, reduced effectiveness of treatments or vaccines, or diagnostic detection failures."

The good news is that the vaccines have been shown to be effective against the variant, but much of the population remains ineligible for the vaccine and people who are immunocompromised also remain at risk.

 

Campaign manager larps as random hard worker family person in his candidate's campaign ad

We're exactly one week away from changing the course of history in District 30. It's an honor to run to represent you in the City Council and I look forward to being your Democratic nominee.

Share this video far & wide and I'll see you at the polls! This one is for you 💪 pic.twitter.com/NHxndSFYRJ

— Juan Ardila (@JuanArdilaNYC) June 15, 2021

 

If you plan on deception to get residents to vote for your groomed client Derek, at least find a different pair of shades to wear. 

 

City Council candidate curses out women and calls them nazis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NY Daily News

 A potty-mouthed City Council wannabe in Queens has gone after a number of women on social media — along with joking about rape and apparently challenging a man to a fight after getting into an argument on Facebook.

Steve Behar, a Democrat running to represent eastern Queens, recently came under fire for a sexist tweet targeting opponent Linda Lee. He suggested her message boiled down to saying, “Vote for Me I’m a Mommy!”

Since then, more outrageous social media posts by Behar have surfaced.

“F--k you ... You’re a stupid racist c--t!” he wrote a Long Island woman on Facebook.

“You’re a Nazi c--t!” he raged in a follow-up post.

Outgoing Councilman Barry Grodenchik is backing Behar, his staff attorney, to take over his seat.

Among Behar’s ravings about Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Behar wrote on Facebook over two years ago, “This woman is not credible and I refuse to destroy someone’s career without any due process.”

Around the same time, he made another inflammatory post.

“Come on now! Who didn’t grope and rape girls in high school? Democrats are such snowflakes!” Behar wrote. He told The News he was being sarcastic.

In separate posts, he called former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos a “dumb b---h” and former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen “Nazi Barbie.”

While debating policy with a Long Island man, Behar raged on Facebook, “You prove you’re more stupid and more of a p---y with each post!”

Update: Where Behar gets fed his lunch and resorts to unjustifiable race baiting and shaming

Update: Steve rages full on at a BLM protest last year.

NY Daily News

A Queens City Council wannabe’s profanity and rage aren’t just confined to the online world.

Steve Behar went off on an expletive-filled tirade against Black Lives Matter demonstrators gathered at a Jamaica, Queens, park last summer.

“You have no f--king business being here!” he yelled at activists gathered in Major Mark Park in June 2020, according to video posted to Twitter.

When a demonstrator interjects, “We all have business being here,” Behar snaps back: “F--k you! You’re pathetic!”

Video shows him ranting — with his face mask on his forehead — in spite of protests from a man who noted there were children present.

“You co-opted a Black Lives Matter protest for your own agenda!” Behar fumed while pumping his fist. “You should be ashamed!”

Asked by a demonstrator why Behar was there, he yelled: “I’m here to show my little niece and nephew that Black Lives Matter!”

The demonstration was one of many across the city after Black Minnesota man George Floyd was killed by a white police officer in May 2020.

Out of about 100 demonstrators at the park that day, some were protesting local electeds for taking campaign cash from police unions, according to attendee Ramy Noaman, who shot the video.

 

Pro-overdevelopment CB7 cancels member appointed by Donovan Richards

 

Queens Eagle

A Queens community board moved forward with efforts to remove one of its members from its ranks Monday night. 

Queens Community Board 7 voted 42 to 3, with one abstention, to take the next steps to expel board member John Choe, who’s been accused of various acts of misconduct by the board’s executive committee. He’s denied all allegations against him.

It was the first time in the board’s history that expulsion proceedings were initiated. 

Chuck Apelian, the board’s vice chair, began the process by reading the charges against Choe, which range from unauthorized postings to Facebook to violations of the City Charter. 

“This is something that’s been going on for a while,” Apelian said. “Every time we tried to work things out, it didn’t seem to go away.”

After a brief spat between Choe and Eugene Kelty, the board’s chair, the accused board member was given a few minutes to defend himself. 

“This is an embarrassment to the entire community board system,” Choe said. “I think this whole charade is a huge, huge embarrassment to the community board and I object vehemently to this entire process. It's absurd.”

In order to proceed with Choe’s removal, two-thirds of the board had to vote in favor – over 90 percent supported the motion. 

“I think that’s a very loud comment,” Apelian told the Eagle after the vote. “I knew we had overwhelming support but that’s a pretty resounding number – that’s pretty telling.”

Choe received support from both a handful of community board members and several members of the public, who were given an opportunity to speak after the vote had taken place.

“I just see this as an abuse of authority,” said Cody Herrmann, a board member, who added that she thought the charges against Choe were “misconstrued.”

Herrmann voted against the proceedings, as did members Harpreet Singh Wahan and Choe. 

“I do not believe that any of this is fair or justified,” said Laura Shepard, who spoke in support of Choe during the public comment period. “This whole thing is nonsense and shame on all of you who voted for it.”

The board’s executive committee, made up of members Warren Schreiber, Frank Macchio, Lei Zhao, Kelty and Apelian, voted unanimously to take the action against Choe last month. On May 26, Kelty issued Choe with a letter notifying him of the proceedings against him. 

Choe, who’s running for City Council in District 20, said he hadn’t been contacted by the board after receiving the letter. 

“No one has explained to me the process or what my rights are,” Choe told the Eagle prior to Monday’s meeting. “We've tried to contact the borough president’s office and it seems like they're tacitly allowing this to happen, even though there's really no credence to any of these allegations.”

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards has refrained from commenting on the removal proceedings, despite having appointed Choe to the board against the recommendation of City Council member Peter Koo earlier this year. 

“The Queens Borough President’s office will let this process unfold and not interfere,” a spokesperson for Richards told the Eagle earlier this month. 

While the executive committee and Choe have clashed for years, their disagreements came to a head in the lead up to the vote to approve plans to develop the Flushing waterfront in December 2020. Choe, who stood in stark opposition to the plan, called out Apelian for what he alleged to be a conflict of interest. 

Apelian, who also serves as the board’s Land Use Committee chair, worked as a paid consultant for the development group behind the project. Apelian recused himself from the board’s vote on the matter and accused Choe of slander. 

On Monday, Choe repeated his allegations to Apelian in front of the full board. 

“You are not only embarrassing yourself by doing this, you are actually promoting the corruption that’s going on in this community board by taking money from developers,” Choe said. “I cannot be silent on that.” 

 

Cuomo's hospital lobby donors are trying to kill federal lawsuit against nursing home

 

 

 NY Post

 New York’s powerful hospital groups have taken steps to get a federal COVID-19 lawsuit against a Long Island nursing home tossed — calling it a potentially precedent-setting case that could have damaging, “far-ranging consequences” for the industry.

The Greater New York Hospital Association and NYS Health Care Association filed papers in Brooklyn federal court on Friday challenging the suit brought by Vivian Zayas, whose mom died of coronavirus last year following her stay at Our Lady of Consolation.

Zayas, who sued last August, is seeking to hold the West Islip nursing home liable in her mom’s death, saying it failed to take adequate preventative measures to keep the killer bug from spreading.

“They know my case could open the door for victims seeking accountability. We need to protect the residents, not the bottom line of these facilities,” Zayas said.

de Blasio's Times Square vac site screws up

 NY Post

 This is not the “experience” New Yorkers want.

The operator of the pop-up COVID vaccination site in the former “NFL Experience” building in Times Square sent out an emergency notice informing 899 patients that it erroneously injected them with expired Pfizer doses.

The patients were told by ATC Vaccination Services that they need to get another shot because the firm “cannot guarantee the effectiveness” of the doses they received.

“We are contacting you concerning the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine you received at Times Square – NFL Experience vaccination site on June 5 to June 10, 2021. It was recognized after the vaccine was administered, that it had been in the freezer beyond the approved time frame prior to it being administered,” David Savitsky said in an email to patients.

A dad of two teen daughters who were given the faulty shots last week was left fuming after getting the email and a phone call from ATC Vaccination Services about the mix up.

“The guy who called wasn’t even a doctor,” the dad said.