New York taxpayers have shelled out not less than $2.7 million in political pork over the previous decade — together with $430,000-plus since final July — to 5 nonprofits that helped arrange or assist radical anti-Israel pupil protests.
A Submit examination of Metropolis Council “discretionary funds” present members funneled practically $2.5 million alone since 2014 to the Manhattan-based Muslim Neighborhood Community, which affords “safety-training” seminars to protestors.
The group additionally posted some spirited recommendation on social media final week on how protestors ought to refuse police searches and never be “fooled” by the “’good cop/dangerous cop’ method.”
Council members delivered $410,818 of the MCN’s cash this fiscal 12 months to fund wage and programming prices, together with $245,000 immediately from Speaker Adrienne Adams.
Different nonprofits helping the protesters who’ve gotten a chunk of the discretionary pie embody The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ New York chapter and the ironically-named Jews for Racial and Financial Justice.
The latter — which acquired $77,000 — helped arrange radical protests in and round Columbia College, Metropolis Faculty of New York and different NYC faculty campuses.
A lot of the pork — $60,000 — was dished out by Comptroller Brad Lander from 2016 to 2019, when the Democratic socialist was nonetheless a Brooklyn councilman.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ native chapter feasted on $108,511, the overwhelming majority distributed by a first-of-its-kind initiative referred to as “Communities of Coloration Nonprofit Stabilization Fund” that NYC Council members created to assist Black, Latino and Asian-led nonprofits.
The Muslim civil rights group has outspokenly referred to as for all legal expenses towards the Columbia and CCNY protesters to be dropped and condemned the NYPD for shutting down the anti-Israel rallies.
On Friday, the group posted a hyperlink to a script on social media and instructed individuals to comply with it when calling native prosecutors and asking them to drop the costs.
The Heart for Standard Democracy and Peace Motion New York State have been allotted $20,000 every in Council funds, information present.
Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, a Brooklyn Republican and avid Israel supporter, mentioned it’s time the Council takes a critical look on the way it spends its pork-barrel funds.
“We’d like a whole overhaul of the clearly weak commonplace of evaluate for organizations which might be capable of take metropolis cash — our cash,” she mentioned.
“By funding these innocuous-sounding organizations, we are actually paying for a scientific Marxist infestation that’s lastly finishing up a well-coordinated revolution that’s inflicting chaos and disruption to society,” she added. “It’s enraging however fully unsurprising.”
Doug Kellogg, director of the conservative anti-tax group People for Tax Reform State Initiatives, was additionally flabbergasted upon studying how a lot tax {dollars} the Council despatched the anti-Israel teams.
“New York Metropolis’s price range faces years of multi-billion-dollar deficits, and residents pay the best mixed revenue tax fee within the nation,” mentioned Kellogg. “However left-wing politicians preserve the taxpayer cash flowing to their favored non-profits, whereas pushing cuts on police and public security, all to assist militant protestors destroy the town.”
In November, The Submit reported Large Apple taxpayers shelled out practically $9 million since 2010 to 4 nonprofits that helped spearhead anti-Israel protests on NYC streets.
Greater than $4.25 million — or practically half — was awarded by Council discretionary funds, together with practically $2 million after a November 2021 basic election spawned a mass inflow of socialists and different new far-left members to the legislative physique.
The massive winners nonetheless doing metropolis enterprise embody Tides Heart — an advocacy group closely funded by far-left billionaire kingmaker George Soros.
It’s earned greater than $1.2 million by contracts on the Division of Training and different metropolis businesses, however a bulk of its contracts have been awarded over a decade in the past, information present,
Metropolis Council spokesperson Mara Davis defended the legislative physique’s pork spending, saying it “funds tons of of non-profit organizations to assist applications that serve New Yorkers throughout our numerous metropolis. This consists of “hate crime prevention that combats anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and all different types of hate with applications that attain tens of hundreds of scholars,” she mentioned.
Reps for Lander and the 5 nonprofits didn’t return messages.
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