Order Daniel Greenfield’s new book, Domestic Enemies: The Founding Fathers’ Fight Against the Left: HERE.
A generation after the Islamic terrorist attacks of September 11, not only is a supporter of Islamic terrorism ensconced in Gracie Mansion, but the New York City Council is preparing to purge one of the few remaining critics of Islamic terrorism from its already depleted ranks.
One of the five men convicted in the brutal rape of the Central Park jogger is a New York City councilman while another is running for his own spot on the council, but the City Council’s ethics committee is instead charging Councilwoman Vickie Paladino with “disorderly” behavior for criticizing Zohran Mamdani and his raft of appointees sympathetic to Islamic terrorism.
The New York City Council Committee on Rules, Privileges, Elections, Standards and Ethics, whose members include 8 Democrats and only 1 Republican, has taken no action over the fact that a New York City Council employee, Rafael Bohorquez, turned out to be a criminal illegal alien who had been arrested for assault, but is charging a 71-year-old Republican elected official with “disorderly” behavior because it doesn’t like her tweets criticising Islamic terrorism.
And Zohran Mamdani.
The committee hasn’t launched investigations into any other councilmembers over their tweets.
There were calls for an investigation of Councilwoman Paladino after she condemned the Muslim massacre of 15 people, most of them Jews, at a Chanukah party. But there has been no investigation of Shahana Hanif, a Bangladeshi Muslim councilwoman affiliated with the DSA, which has defended the Hamas massacre of Jews, for appearing at a rally where Hamas was cheered, blaming Israel for the Oct 7 attacks, initially refusing to condemn the massacres, and endorsing the Columbia encampment which targeted Jewish students and faculty members.
When Councilwoman Hanif was arrested at a pro-terrorist rally, that was not “disorderly behavior”, but Councilwoman Paladino’s tweets against terrorism are somehow “disorderly”.
The same councilmembers who have claimed that Paladino’s tweets were “deplorable” and “inflammatory” have failed to describe Shahana Hanif in the same way after she blamed the Oct 7 attacks on Israel, for refusing to support an end ‘Jew-hatred’, and for refusing to condemn antisemitic graffiti and vandalism in her district, claiming instead that Israel was ‘vandalizing’ Gaza. They have instead come after a councilwoman who has consistently stood up for America, for New York City and for its beleaguered Jewish community.
The targeting of Councilwoman Paladino began in earnest when she criticized Mamdani’s pick of Faiza Ali, who had worked for CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in terrorist funding, which supported the Oct 7 attacks. Islamic terrorism isn’t ‘disorderly’, but criticising it somehow is.
“New York is under foreign occupation. There’s really no other way to put it,” the councilwoman tweeted. “Does this administration have one single actual American in it?”
Council members denounced Councilwoman Paladino as “Islamophobic” and claimed that her tweet violated the city council’s “harassment” policy. The speaker falsely claimed that “this deplorable, inflammatory conduct negatively affects Council employees and people across our city … and we will not tolerate behavior that targets or demeans any community based on their faith, background, or immigration status — particularly from our own members.”
Harassment policies govern the behavior of employees. Abusing them to selectively restrict the public speech of elected officials in the opposition is the kind of government misconduct that the Bill of Rights was created to prevent. Previous crackdowns had already reportedly limited the councilwoman’s participation on committees after she criticised ‘drag queens’ grooming children through ‘story hour’, but the City Council can impose fines and even expel members.
The question is whether the Islamization of New York City politics is so complete that an elected official can be expelled for questioning Mamdani and the radical members of his administration.
“I have every right under the United States Constitution to engage in political speech on any platform I see fit. No administrative policy supersedes the Constitution, and no government entity may sanction an elected official — or anyone else — for participation in political discourse in the public square, online or otherwise,” Councilwoman Paladino warned.
If Democrats are able to craft ‘harassment’ policies that criminalize any political speech that they disagree with and then selectively apply them to opposition elected officials, then only Democrats, and more specifically, Democrats on the farthest left, will be able to hold public office.
The case against Councilwoman Paladino rests on the argument that her criticism of Islamic terrorism is “disorderly”. No such standard is applied to supporters of Islamic terrorism who now run the city or to actual criminals who sit on the council or work for it. Likewise the contention that her criticism of Islam is “harassment” of City Council employees not only perverts workplace regulations to silence political speech in the marketplace of ideas, but has not been applied to any of the councilmembers who have denounced Jews and endorsed terrorism.
Is speech violence? It’s worse than violence because the same council members who rallied to the defense of Rafael Bohorquez, a New York City Council illegal alien employee who had reportedly assaulted a man, are claiming that a tweet criticizing a radical Mamdani pick with ties to pro-Hamas groups is “disorderly” behavior and more deserving of punitive action.
Condemning Islamic terrorism and its supporters is worse than physical assault.
“None of the posts cited by the committee contain threats of violence. No elected official, ideology, or religion is above criticism and debate. I have every right to speak my mind on social media without fear of retaliation by my government, as does every American. The fact that this egregious disregard for the Constitution was allowed to proceed to this point is a stain on our Council, and on New York City. Actions like this are meant to intimidate both elected officials and individuals against speaking their conscious on matters of public import and controversy, and the chilling effect on speech is undeniable,” Councilwoman Vickie Paladino contended.
There’s no room for the Constitution, for criticism of Islam or patriotism in New York. We tried to liberate Afghanistan and Iraq, when we should have really liberated New York City.
