NY Uses Tax Dollars to Pay Former Criminals to Mentor Youth. Guess What Happened Next.

 

There isn't a government program that Democrats won't waste money on, no matter how ridiculous. Instead of creating a culture that puts criminals in prison (that would be racist) and teaches children that they will face consequences for bad behavior, Democrats insist on funding social programs that never work, but are sure to make them feel good.

In New York, the Strategic Neighborhood Understanding and Guardian (SNUG) Program pairs former criminals with youth to dissuade them from entering a life of drugs and violent crime. But two men paid by that taxpayer-funded program were just busted for...dealing drugs and carrying weapons.

They were originally busted in earlier this year and were apparently on the clock when they were selling the drugs.

Here's more from the original story.

They were hired to stop crime and now, they’re accused of fueling it.

Two Syracuse men working for a state-funded anti-violence program are now at the center of a drug investigation.

A year-long probe led to the shocking discovery and a 24-count indictment.

Just steps away from the Southwest Community Center in Syracuse where they were paid to steer young people away from violence, prosecutors say Cassieum Pitts and Ahmed Abdi, were selling drugs.

“And they’re accused of doing this on the clock?” NewsChannel 9’s Rachel Polansky asked. 

“Yes,” Senior Assistant District Attorney, Alphonse Williams, said.

Now those two men, Ahmed Abdi and Cassieum Pitts have accepted plea deals in this case. Abdi will be in prison for six years; Pitts will serve nine.

Prosecutors said Abdi and Pitts were wearing orange safety vests and on duty when they sold cocaine and methamphetamine to a confidential informant.

"It's honestly crazy, right?" said Alphonse Williams, the Senior District Attorney in Onondaga County. "You can’t miss those bright orange vests. And you’re like, man, this is actually happening in our city,” Williams also called video of Abdi and Pitts "discomforting" and did damage to the community, especially the kids they were hired to mentor.

"When the youth see that, they’re like, if you’re not taking it seriously, I’m not gonna take it seriously. I’m gonna be like you, and I’m gonna continue to do the things that are plaguing our community at large. It’s the youth that they’re supposed to be serving that gets hurt by this."

Governor Kathy Hochul was a proponent of SNUG. During a March 2022 press conference, she said, "This is an important program because I know that it works. I want to continue investing in what we know has a proven track record of accomplishment." In February, she said the state would spend $20 million on SNUG, with almost $2 million going to the Syracuse site. That announcement came shortly before Abdi and Pitts were arrested.

Advertisement

In a statement, Lateef Johnson-Kinsey, a spokesperson for the mayor, said, "Every organization has bad apples, no matter what the organization is. It was two individuals, not 20. Two individuals does not stop what we are doing as a community."

Here's a List of What Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick Allegedly Spent Stolen FEMA On

Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (FL-20) is in a boatload of legal trouble. Last week, she was charged with stealing $5 million in FEMA funds after a billing error resulted in an overpayment to a business she's affiliated with for a COVID-related vaccination staffing contract.

Cherfilus-McCormick also faces censure in and possible expulsion from Congress for her involvement. For her part, Cherfilus-McCormick claims she's innocent and played the race card, accusing prosecutors of "attacking minorities."

Now, a report shows exactly what Cherfilus-McCormick allegedly spent that money on, including a six-figure, three-carat yellow diamond ring.

The list of spending is long and expensive. It includes $2.4 million to Cherfilus-McCormick's consulting company, $1.2 million to a bank account managed by relatives of Cherfilus-McCormick, $830K to a different bank account on which Cherfilus-McCormick is an authorized user, $334K to Nadege Leblanc, who is "accused of having coordinated straw-donor contributions to Cherfilus-McCormick," $190K to a bank account tied to Cherfilus-McCormick's brother's consulting company.

The ring, according to a Tiffany & Co. client advisor, appears to be a "Tiffany Fancy Yellow Single Row Celeste, and the Victoria Band ring." Cherfilus-McCormick is wearing the ring in her official portrait.

Yesterday, a Florida judge set a $60,000 bond and placed travel restrictions on Cherfilus-McCormick, who had to surrender her personal passport. She is allowed to travel from Florida to D.C., Maryland, and the Eastern District of Virginia. She is also allowed to keep her Congressional passport to do certain aspects of her job. A spokesperson for Cherfilus-McCormick said she has no intention of resigning from her office.

Warren Tried Criticizing Duffy's Call to Restore Travel Etiquette. Here's How the Secretary Responded.

 

The Democratic Party really has a problem with Americans being told to act civilized while traveling. Last week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told those heading home for the holidays that the Golden Age of Travel begins with us, and recommended things like being polite and dressing appropriately to go to the airport.

California Governor Gavin Newsom attacked Duffy for it, and complained about the Trump administration canceling fines for airlines that canceled or delayed flights.

Now Elizabeth Warren is doing the same thing:

Of course, we don't expect Democrats to understand that airlines simply passed the costs of those fines onto consumers through higher ticket prices. They truly believe big corporations will eat the costs Democrats impose on them. That's not the case, of course.

On top of that, delays or cancellations of flights are sometimes safety issues. This writer can only speak for herself, but she'd rather wait a bit to make sure the aircraft is in shape to fly than end up dead in a fiery crash.

But Secretary Duffy wasn't going to let Warren's accusations go unaddressed. He pointed out that she voted against a bill that would have spent $12.5 billion to modernize America's air traffic control (ATC) system.

Duffy is correct. President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) had allocations for ATC upgrades and infrastructure. That was described as a "modernization down-payment" for radar and telecom upgrades, as well as new control centers and Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) recapitalization.

One X user asked the question this writer was thinking, "Is her reason to not upgrade the system because she doesn't like people not receiving cancellation money?"

That could be part of it, but as the funding was part of the OBBB, she would have voted against it even if it cured cancer and gave every American a puppy.

That's part of why they object to the civility angle of Duffy's travel pitch. They like the chaos and societal breakdown.

Warren is one of the most feckless Senators, and that's quite the achievement.

Democrats Who Told Military Not to Obey ‘Illegal’ Orders Are ‘Not Being Honest’

 

person1: These six Democrat Congress members, one of the most interesting, odd examples of political performance art. They concocted this video, encouraging, warning, urging members of the military not to follow illegal orders. Wow, Victor, it was just so weird. Your thoughts on it. 

person 2: We have 1.3 million soldiers on active duty, and there are representatives, six of them Congress people and senators, who say on this video, and they all say we have served, we’re veterans, and you don’t have to obey an unlawful order, OK? And it’s in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The idea is that [President] Donald Trump is issuing unlawful orders. They don’t cite one, not one. So, really, the message then becomes, “Hey, you 1.3 million soldiers, you all are lawyers. So, when your commanding officer says, ‘Get in the helicopter, fly through the fog, and look for the downed pilot,’ you say, ‘That’s an unlawful order. I’m not going to.’” 

That is the message. If the message is, “Wink, nod, Donald Trump has been giving unlawful orders, but we don’t want to specify which ones,” there’s a reason for that. And we’ve heard that it’s unlawful to use military force abroad without a congressional authorization. False. [Former President] Barack Obama killed dozens of people with Predator drones, including a U.S. citizen. He joked about it at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner when he said, “If you want to date my daughter, it’s called Predator, P-R-E-D-A-T-O-R.” OK. 

George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Harry Truman, they’ve all used it. If it’s you can’t send federal troops into a city that’s under siege, [Secretary of State] Colin Powell begged to use 5,000 Marines for the Rodney King [riots], he did. And we’ve had, I think, seven instances where presidents have sent troops in: World War I veterans, Civil War draft, you name it. 

So, they can’t list one thing. And then they say, Uniform Code of Military Justice. OK, Mr. Left-wing Representatives, go look at Article 90 and 92. And it does say you can obey, but then it has lawful and unlawful orders. And you go look at the instances when you can, it’s almost impossible. You have to be absolutely sure that you are being told what … if you read that thing, what an unlawful order is, it’s something like shoot the prisoner, something like that. It’s not what they’re imagining.

And that is highly ironic because in the first term—we have Article 88, since they want to quote the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it says generals, admirals, high-ranking officers shall not disparage, demean, basically smear the commander in chief, the vice president, Cabinet people. And this applies, it says, whether they’re active or retired and subject to recall. We had, I think it was eight or nine four-star admirals who said he was a liar, he was Mussolini, he acted as if he was Hitler, he was a comparable, I think that was General [Michael] Hayden who flashed pictures of Auschwitz, said that Trump was doing the same thing on the border. I could go on. 

So, they’re not being honest. But what’s even worse is—very quickly, and Sami and I talked to some others about it, this insurrectionary idea that Gen. [Mark] Milley, for example, because Trump is so evil, can diagnose him as unstable, then call his Chinese counterpart in the People’s Liberation Army and warn him that he will be contacted if he has any order, Milley, any order, or he can break the chain of command, which he’s not supposed to do, and interfere between theater commanders and the Department of Defense’s secretary, which he did. And he told them all to consult him first.

Or you have Rosa Brooks, 11 days after Donald Trump was inaugurated, saying we’ve got to get rid of this guy. There’s three ways to do it. We either have the 25th Amendment or we impeach him—too slow—or you can have a military coup. Military coup, she said.

And then we had two lieutenant colonels, one was very decorated, Lt. Nagl and said, Gen. Milley, you’re gonna have to remove him. He won’t leave. And he has his little green men. And I tell you what, man, when the 82nd Airborne goes and confronts Trump. he’ll back down. So, he’s basically calling for an OK Corral shootout between the Secret Service or somebody in the 82nd. So, what I’m getting at, Jack, is this is not new. 

And when you add this to the 600 sanctuary cities where they’re defying federal law, it’s like Fort Sumter. Or you have [Rep.] Nancy Pelosi saying, we’re going to arrest any ICE officer in our state that we think breaks one of our laws. They don’t know what the Constitution says, that the superiority lies with the federal government when it is enforcing federal law anywhere in the 50 states.

And yet they keep doing it. And they don’t even believe it, what they’re saying. Because when Jan Brewer was the governor of Arizona, and Obama would not, would not, would not do his federal responsibility and close the border, she tried to. And they sued her. And our liberal judges then said, no, Gov. Brewer. That’s state’s rights. You can’t interfere. And she said, well, he’s not doing his job. It doesn’t matter. Immigration is federal. Those same judges are now saying, yes, we can interfere because before the federal government could not be challenged by the state because it didn’t want to enforce the law. It was derelict and that was wonderful. Now, when the federal government is dutiful and wants to enforce the law, yes, you can interfere. 

I don’t know who their heroes are. Jefferson Davis, John Calhoun, George Wallace, Gen. Scott, [played by] Burt Lancaster in “Seven Days in May.” I don’t know. But it’s one of those. They’re insurrectionists. And we’re going to get a situation—mark my words: We’re going to get a situation next year as the midterms and everything heats up when some crazy blue state governor or mayor is going to tell his local police force to stop an ICE officer. Whether the ICE officer is in the process of arresting somebody or chasing somebody through the woods, as we saw in that tape. And you’re going to have a confrontation. And then we’re going to be Bleeding Kansas 1854. 

And I don’t know how it’s going to end, but this is really dangerous. And the Left keeps pushing the insurrection button. And these people who are telling soldiers to disobey commands if they feel and they’re considered opinion that they can is really bizarre, but it has a precedent. If the chairman of the Joint Chief says that as Dr. Mark Milley with my sophisticated background in psychiatry I tele-diagnosed our commander in chief is unstable, then that gives me a right to disobey any order that he gives and beyond that to contact the Communist Party in China and warn them that we might attack them. And I give them advanced warning.

And that theory is the same thing. 

You soldiers can diagnose your commanding officer as crazy, and he gave you a wrong order. So just disobey it. And then they cloak that in patriotism and their service. I’m a veteran. I’m getting really tired of that too. I really like veterans. I grew up in a family of veterans, and I think it’s a wonderful thing to serve. Everybody I met in the military is wonderful. But when these people say that they’re going to hide behind being a veteran. That’d be like me saying you can’t talk about food policy, Mr. Senator. Have you ever been on a 285 Massey for 12 hours? Have you? Have you ever sprayed dimethoate for six hours in a field? You don’t know anything about farming. You have no right to talk about food policy. 

Everybody has a right to talk about military policy, especially when the military veterans set themselves up to be advocating civil disobedience, which is what they’re doing. They really are, or actually military disobedience.

person 1: I’m glad you mentioned “Seven Days in May,” Victor. I saw it recently. It is a terrific movie, even though it’s a liberal movie. No question, it was made from a liberal perspective. But you wait 60 years, and it’s an indictment of the current liberal sense. 

person 2: It is, it is, it is. Everybody, I want to be very clear: The Left is not principled. They don’t have a position on states’ rights or federal superiority in a constitutional sense. They don’t have a position on sanctuary cities. That is just for the moment because it’s conducive to their larger agenda of acquiring and expanding their power. 

And I’ve said this before, but if you’re some guy and you’re a developer, let’s say in Salt Lake City, and you want to build a condo and you see a three-winged blackbird and you say, that blank-blank blackbird nest is right in the way of my bulldozers. And then somebody says, “Well, you know, it’s on the endangered species list.” “I don’t care. The federal government has no jurisdiction here in Utah.” 

Or you’re in Wyoming, you get your cowboy boots stereotype, you go in and they say, “We can’t sell you that .45.” “Well, I don’t follow the federal gun laws. This is the state of Wyoming. It’s a sanctuary gun city.” They would go ballistic, ballistic. “This is insurrection. You have to follow federal law.” They just pick and choose because they have no principle. Everybody needs to know that. When they get up, like Gavin Newsom, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this about sanctuary cities, if you’re here illegally. 

And then you have Karen Bass and Los Angeles officials deliberately creating apps and trying to work with illegal aliens to resist the rule of law as practiced by federal ICE agents. But believe me, sometimes a federal government is good when the protester is conservative, and that very rarely that happens. 

And so that’s what’s really scary about these people. They’re French Revolutionary Jacobins. They’ll do anything and say anything at any time. And I was really angry about that video. I thought, wow. 

You hide behind your service and then you, for cheap political purposes, you get up there and you send this message to over a million soldiers that there’s going to come an occasion where they’re going to get an illegal order, and they’re going to have the constitutional right to resist it when you don’t tell people, “This is how many orders were resisted in the military the last five years per year, and this is what happens to people who resisted that order.” 

Why don’t they give that information out? 

person 1  Resist and you’ll be a hero, but don’t have a vaccine and we’ll can you. It’s amazing.

person 2: 8,500 people.

Insurrection Chic—Democrats’ Dangerous New Fad

 

I’d like to talk about insurrection chic. By that I mean this phenomenon of the Democrats in particular, and maybe the Left in general, it’s talking about ways of undermining the jurisdiction of our own federal government.

I don’t know what their model is. Is it Jefferson Davis, who ordered South Carolina State Troops to fire on the federal fort at Fort Sumter in 1861 that ushered in the Civil War? Or maybe it’s George Wallace, huh? Standing in the doorstep of the University of Alabama, saying, “We’re not going to, here in Alabama, obey state law on segregation and racial discrimination.”

Or maybe, did you ever see the movie “Seven Days in May” (1964) about an officer, General Scott? I think he was played by Burt Lancaster. And he said, basically, we’re going to nullify the presidential directives and not abide by a treaty of the federal government—try to, essentially, overthrow the government.

This is very ironic because the Left lectured us on insurrection, insurrection, insurrection, even though special counsel Jack Smith never charged President Donald Trump with insurrection. But what’s going on now is quite scary. And it’s not new.

In the first term, we had a number of four-star retired admirals and generals who violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It said even retired flag officers were subject to the statute that says you shall not disparage the president of the United States. Yet, they called him Mussolini. They said that he was analogous to the people at Auschwitz, he was a liar.

We had one officer who said, the sooner the better, Trump should be removed. We have elections for that. We don’t talk like that. We had two lieutenant colonels that said they bragged that the 101st Airborne would beat the Secret Service and force Donald Trump to get out of the White House. It’s pretty awful.

Now, lately, it’s getting very scary. We’ve had—the mayor of New York says that federal law essentially doesn’t exist in the city of New York. When he takes over, it’s international law. And that he will arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under diplomatic protection, as a foreign dignitary visiting the U.N. What’s he going to do? Order the NYPD to stop the Secret Service that may be protecting Netanyahu when he arrives as a guest?

We had Mayor Brandon Johnson in Chicago say that he was not going to obey federal law. In fact, he was going to oppose it. That wasn’t just—I don’t know—theoretical because when Immigration and Customs Enforcement was trapped, a convoy of ICE agents were trapped, the Chicago area police force did not come to their aid, by explicit orders not to.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass said that city officials are conspiring, working to tip off illegal aliens against the efforts of the federal government, to stop them.

In California, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who had called the president of the United States the most vile creature in the world, the worst creature in the world, a vile creature, and who tore up the State of the Union address on national TV, she said that state law enforcement might arrest federal officials who were enforcing the immigration statutes. What? Would that be a shoot-out? Or what would that be? It’s getting very, very scary.

And then, most recently, we had a number of Democratic Congress people and senators say in a video that they were addressing soldiers, and they said, you have the right to disobey an order, if it’s unlawful. They never gave one example of any order, of any order, that Donald Trump or any member of the administration or any senior officer had issued anyone that was deemed illegal. What was the point of that? What was the point of telling 1.3 million soldiers that are now on active duty that you have the right to disobey a superior’s order?

Did they quote Article 90 and 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice? No. It outlines specifically the very, very, very, very rare conditions under which a soldier can say, “What you ordered me is unlawful.” And you know what they are. They’re things like using violence in an improper way against another person or desertion. But there’s no example that they can give. None at all.

We have 600 jurisdictions in which blue cities and states say that the federal law no longer applies in their jurisdiction. That’s sort of neo-Confederate nullification that’s prompted the Civil War. And you know, when Jefferson Davis, when he ordered South Carolina troops to fire on Fort Sumter, all he was doing was saying that the federal government is at war with the state. That’s what our mayors are doing in these blue jurisdictions.

Do they believe that that is a principle that they would extend to everybody? No. If a county in Utah said, “We’re conservative, we don’t believe in the”—I don’t know—“the Endangered Species Act. We’re not gonna stop construction for a newt.” Would they say, “That’s fine, you can nullify federal law”? No, they wouldn’t.

If somebody in Montana said, “I don’t like federal gun registration, it just hampers the people in our county. It doesn’t apply here,” would the Left say, “Yes. That’s what we do with immigration. Congratulations”? No.

So, what’s going on? Why are they nullifying federal law? Why are they advising protesters in Portland how to avoid arrests by federal authorities?

Why are they telling people in all of these blue jurisdictions that they will appeal to a higher authority, the United Nations? Mayor Johnson says he’ll call in the U.N., the Commission on Human Rights. Is he going to abide by that commission that in the past has had members like, I don’t know, Communist China, North Korea, Iran?

Is that who he thinks have a higher authority than the Constitution? Does he understand the president of the United States was elected by a majority of the population who voted?

So, this is getting very, very scary. And why are they doing it? The Left has no power in the legislative, executive, or judicial branch of government. Their agenda is one that most people do not want. And they want to create as much Teslas. In the past, that has included firebombing Tesla dealerships. That has involved street protests that turned violent against ICE. That has involved social media celebrating assassins and violence.

And now it’s the nullification of federal laws that, in the Constitution, take precedent over local and state laws, when federal officers are trying to protect federal property, as they are now, and enforce federal statutes, as they are now. In other words, the Left is neo-Confederate and insurrectionary. And it should stop before we get into 1861, again.