New York Governor Pitches Dangerous Idea to Crack Down on Protests

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is bringing back a dangerous idea to crack down on pro-Palestine protests: a mask ban to rat out protesters.

Speaking with CNN’s Laura Coates in a softball interview Wednesday night, Hochul disseminated debunked disinformation about two recent pro-Palestine protests and floated a return to the state’s mask ban ordinance. The ban was previously enforced to quash the Ku Klux Klan and repealed in 2020 to accommodate protections against the Covid-19 pandemic. Hochul claimed the presence of masks—not antisemitic rhetoric or actions themselves, just people wearing masks—was “frightening.”

“There was a ban on masks before the pandemic, that you couldn’t have face coverings that didn’t serve a purpose. For example, a surgical mask for someone who is elderly or ill—the pandemic removed that from our state law. It was repealed at the time, but I absolutely will go back and take a look at this and see whether it can be restored because it is frightening to people,” said Hochul.

More frightening, many noted, is becoming sick with a highly contagious disease just so your local lawmakers can score political points. Hochul’s comment was met with immediate fury by disability rights advocates.

“Does that mean it will have a STRONG MEDICAL EXEMPTION? Or would it be a half-assed partial health exemption like NC republicans did? VERY UNCLEAR,” epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding wrote on X (formerly Twitter). Other proponents for masking as a public health tool also spoke out, with calls to flood Hochul’s contact lines to advocate against the prospective policy circulating widely as of Thursday afternoon.

Hochul’s interest in reinstating the state’s mask ban has followed other states working to repress pro-Palestine protests—where people frequently obscure their faces to protect against chronic harassment, not to embolden criminality.

It turns out Clarence Thomas has failed to disclose even more free trips from conservative billionaire Harlan Crow, a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation uncovered.

At least three times, Crow provided trips on his private jet to the Supreme Court justice to destinations including a March 2019 trip to Thomas’s Georgia hometown, a May 2017 trip to Montana near Glacier National Park with a return flight to Dallas two days later, and a June 2021 roundtrip flight between San Jose, California, and Washington, D.C. The revelations were provided to the committee from Crow’s lawyer.

The purpose of the trips was not mentioned in the report, and Thomas has not reported them in his financial disclosures, even though some legal experts say it violates the law.

It may be the first of more revelations to come, according to Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, who said that a full investigative report from Democrats on the committee would be released later in the summer.

“As a result of our investigation and subpoena authorization, we are providing the American public greater clarity on the extent of ethical lapses by Supreme Court justices,” Durbin said in a statement. The revelations make it “crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct,” he added.

Last year, a ProPublica investigation found that Thomas received free luxury vacations from Crow nearly every year, which the Supreme Court justice failed to report until just last week. The publication also reported that Crow funded the renovation of the home where Thomas’s mother lives, as well as the private school tuition of Mark Martin, the grandson of Thomas’s sister Emma Mae Martin. Thomas and his wife, Ginni Thomas, were Martin’s legal guardians from age 6 to 19 but have since cut ties with Martin, whom Thomas once said he was raising as a “son,” Martin revealed in a recent interview. 

On Thursday on the House floor, Representative Adam Schiff sought to drive home the point of Donald Trump’s 34 felony convictions in his hush-money trial.

“Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,” Schiff said during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Trump’s hush-money scheme prior to the 2016 presidential election. “This was what the jury pronounced, unanimously on every count.”

The California representative and Senate candidate pointed out that Republicans haven’t contested Trump’s guilt, but are basically demonstrating that they have discarded any moral convictions.

“What they’re really saying is they are more than comfortable nominating and electing as the president of the United States someone making hush-money payments to a porn star,” Schiff added, referring to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. 

Republicans have engaged in all kinds of conspiracy theories since Trump was found guilty, ranging from attacking Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, as was the purpose of Thursday’s hearing, to attacking the political activities of Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter as proof of a partisan motive in Trump’s prosecution. During the trial, Trump himself made the accusation on his Truth Social account, only to be slapped with a gag order.

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in the trial on July 11, and reportedly begged Speaker Mike Johnson to try to overturn the guilty verdict, in an expletive-laden tirade in the days following his conviction. While Bragg and prosecutor Matthew Colangelo have agreed to testify before the committee, that may be all that House Republicans can do to intervene in a state criminal case. Of course, Trump may be trying to enlist their help in advance of his plan to win in November and give himself a permanent get out of jail free card.

Republicans were quick to spin Donald Trump’s decision to call Milwaukee a “horrible city” after his private meeting with House GOP lawmakers Thursday, offering a confused array of cover-up possibilities. And Trump’s own explanation seemed to make the least sense out of the bunch.

GOP representatives rushed to provide justifications that included whining about the city’s delay in answering the former president’s request to expand the security perimeter around the Republican National Convention to keep protesters further at bay. Several loyal allies even claimed that Trump never made the comments at all. Trump took a different route altogether.

“It was very clear what I meant,” Trump told Fox News’s Aishah Hasnie. “I said, we’re very concerned with crime. I love Milwaukee, I have great friends in Milwaukee, but it’s, as you know, the crime numbers are terrible. We have to be very careful.”

But that wasn’t all. Instead, Trump seems to feel it was obvious that he meant multiple things by the short insult.

“I was referring to, also, the election, the ballots, the way it went down, it was very bad in Milwaukee. Very, very bad,” Trump continued. “And the people understand that and they agree with me. Everybody agrees. No, that was a fake story that came out.”

“Yeah. Milwaukee has a problem with crime, as do most Democrat-run cities,” he said. “Most Democrat-run cities, almost all of them have problems. But they also have a problem with votes. And election integrity. And that’s what we want to make sure we get straight.”

Trump may still be reeling after a trio of his allies were hit with felony charges by Wisconsin prosecutors last week for their involvement in the 2020 fake elector scheme, including Kenneth Chesebro, who allegedly designed the national plot that aimed to frame Trump as the winner of the presidential election.

And, as for Trump’s claim that the city’s crime numbers “are terrible”—in reality, they’re way down, with homicides in the city decreasing by 42 percent when compared to 2022, according to data from the Milwaukee Police Department. Crimes such as rape, aggravated assault, theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson have also dropped off drastically in the Brew City.

Baselessly insulting the city where you’ll be nominated for U.S. president in a handful of weeks is certainly a choice, but here’s hoping that Milwaulkee still knows how to give Trump a warm welcome when he arrives.

Donald Trump’s comment trashing Milwaukee, the site of this year’s Republican National Convention, has understandably not gone over well in the city.

Mayor Cavalier Johnson, asked about Trump calling Milwaukee a “horrible city” in a closed-door meeting with House Republicans on Thursday, clapped back at the former president.

“If Donald Trump wants to talk about things that he thinks are horrible, all of us lived through his presidency, so right back at you, buddy,” Johnson said.

“Look, obviously Donald Trump is wrong about something, yet again,” he continued. “I find it kind of perplexing, I find it kind of strange that he would insult the largest city in Wisconsin because he’s running for president, he obviously wants to win Wisconsin, win the election, and so to insult the state that’s hosting your convention, I think it’s kind of bizarre, actually, kind of unhinged, in a way.”

Johnson wasn’t the only Wisconsin politician to get in a few jabs at Trump. “Milwaukee makes the greatest beer, brats, and motorcycles in the world. It’s home to some of our most vibrant communities, hardest workers, and is a part of what makes Wisconsin the best state in the nation. Donald Trump wouldn’t understand even if a jury told him so,” Senator Tammy Baldwin tweeted, referring to Trump’s recent hush-money conviction.

Representative Gwen Moore of Wisconsin’s 4th district, which includes Milwaukee, also chimed in. “Once he’s settled in with his parole officer, I am certain he will discover that Milwaukee is a wonderful, vibrant and welcoming city full of diverse neighborhoods and a thriving business community,” she posted.