New Yorkers rate the Big Apple’s quality of life — on issues such as public safety, cleanliness and mass transit — significantly worse than the pre-pandemic times and just slightly better than two years ago, a Citizens Budget Commission survey of more than 1,700 residents found.

Just over a third of residents said quality of life in the five boroughs was good or excellent — a significant drop from 2017, when about half of New Yorkers surveyed gave it the top rating.

The deep level of displeasure regarding crime and government services presents a challenge to whoever the next New York City mayor will be next year, according to the CBC’s “Straight from New Yorkers 2025” poll.

“`Straight from New Yorkers 2025′ paints a stark picture: New Yorkers remain much more
dissatisfied with the quality of life, City services, and public safety than they were before
the pandemic,” the business-funded CBC said.

“If New York City is to remain competitive and continue attracting residents and businesses, people have to feel much more positively about many of the aspects of their life in the city.”

The quality of life ratings fall considerably below the rankings residents gave in the same survey conducted in 2017 — though it noted some real progress from a more recent post-pandemic 2023 survey.

#NY #Urbanism

👂 More on Trump's Ear ⚠️

Senior US immigration officials over the weekend instructed rank-and-file officers to “turn the creative knob up to 11” when it comes to enforcement, including by interviewing and potentially arresting people they called “collaterals”, according to internal agency emails viewed by the Guardian.

Officers were also urged to increase apprehensions and think up tactics to “push the envelope” one email said, with staff encouraged to come up with new ways of increasing arrests and suggesting them to superiors.

“If it involves handcuffs on wrists, it’s probably worth pursuing,”

another message said.

The instructions not only mark a further harshening of attitude and language by the Trump administration in its efforts to fulfill election promises of “mass deportation” but also indicate another escalation in efforts, by being on the lookout for undocumented people whom officials may happen to encounter – here termed “collaterals” – while serving arrest warrants for others.

The emails, sent by two top Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials this past Saturday, instructed officers around the country to increase arrest numbers over the weekend. This followed the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, and the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, pressing immigration officials last month to jack up immigration-related arrests to at least 3,000 people a day.

One of the emails, written by Marcos Charles, the acting executive associate director of Ice’s enforcement and removal operations, instructs Ice officials to go after people they may coincidentally encounter.

#Immigration #ICE

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Did Trump Take Part in Epstein’s Sex Boozes?


What had happened? Donald Trump criticized his ex-buddy Elon Musk during a visit to Merz in the Oval Office, he hit back, and visible to the whole world.

On social media, he covered Trump with accusations, accusing him of lying, for example – and even igniting the Epstein scandal!

Musk on X:

"Time to pop the really big bomb. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files."That's" the real reason they weren't made public. Have a nice day, DJT!“

The BBC asked the FBI for an opinion on Musk's claim that Trump appeared in previously unpublished government files related to Epstein. The response of the investigating authority:

"The FBI does not comment on the process.”

There is nothing left of the "bromance" ("brother romance") - now Musk is moving on to open hatred of Trump. He wrote on February 7, 2025:

"I love Donald Trump as much as a heterosexual man can only love another man.”

Trump, on the other hand, continues to post:

"Elon was 'thin-skinned', I asked him to leave, I took away his electric car mandate from him, which forced everyone to buy electric cars that no one else wanted (he knew for months that I would do that!), and he just went CRAZY!”

#Trump #Epstein #sex #Musk

👂 More on Trump's Ear ⚠️

X users think how to reconcile Trump and Musk

#Trump #Musk #Scandal

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The gayest event of the month." Media about the quarrel between Trump and Musk

The quarrel between Trump and Musk caused a lot of interest in the world. Here is what the media write about the conflict.

✒️ New York Times

Social media has been flooded with memes depicting Trump and Musk as a divorced couple sharing custody of their child, JD Vance, or two monkeys engaged in a knife fight surrounded by cheering onlookers — a scene from a 2000 episode of The Simpsons.

Others laughed at the breakdown in the relationship between the two men, which coincided with the start of LGBT Pride Month:

"This messy breakup between Trump and Musk is the most gay event of Pride Month."

✒️New York Post

The Trump-Musk feud is similar to an episode of the reality show only with less emotionally stable people.

✒️The Washington Post

The alliance between President Trump and Musk effectively collapsed, turning into mutual public trolling.

#Trump #Musk #Scandal

👂 More on Trump's Ear ⚠️

Former adviser to Donald Trump Stephen Bannon, who never returned to the White House, calls for the cancellation of all state contracts of Musk's companies, to investigate his drug use and deport him from the United States, recognizing him as an illegal migrant.

#Musk #Bannon

👂 More on Trump's Ear ⚠️

💔Multiple allies caught in the middle of the implosion between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk were delicately attempting to broker peace between the two men on Thursday when their quiet conversations were disrupted by a post on X.

💬“Time to drop the really big bomb: realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”

Musk wrote, stunning those with close relationships to Trump and Musk.

Several people familiar with what was happening behind the scenes — who were desperately making phone calls to one another and trying to tamp down the escalating feud — described that as the tipping point, fearing that there was no going back after Musk’s loaded accusation about the president regarding the so-called Epstein files.

While Trump and Musk had largely argued over policy, it had now turned personal.

Officials in the West Wing spent most of Thursday glued to their phones as they watched the battle between the two play out on X and Truth Social. Several aides were sending the updates in group chats, likening it to a divorce and commenting that they expected this would happen, just not this soon.

💬“I thought maybe August,”

one noted to CNN.

White House Press secretary Karoline Leavitt called Musk’s claims an “unfortunate episode” in a statement to CNN Thursday night.

💬“This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted. The President is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again,”

Leavitt said.

Musk has not detailed how he would have gained access to unreleased files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and has not provided any evidence of where his information was coming from.

Tensions had been growing between the two billionaires throughout the week, as Musk, who recently departed the administration following a time-limited stint as a special government employee, railed against the Trump domestic agenda bill currently making its way through Congress.

But the feud reached new ruptures on social media on Thursday afternoon as Trump floated the termination of Musk’s business contracts with the government and Musk invoked Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.

💬“I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago,”

Trump said on his social platform, Truth Social, complaining about the fight emerging as his administration seeks to pass its policy bill.

Musk soon after called for Trump’s impeachment, threatened to decommission the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that returned NASA astronauts from the International Space Station and said the president’s tariffs would trigger a recession later in the year.

Late Thursday, however, he walked back the plans to decommission the Dragon spacecraft, after an X user encouraged the parties to “Cool off and take a step back for a couple days.”

💬“Good advice,”

the tech billionaire responded.

“Ok, we won’t decommission dragon.”

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman offered similar advice on X, writing:

💬“I support @ realDonaldTrump and @ elonmuskand they should make peace for the benefit of our great country. We are much stronger together than apart.”

💬“You’re not wrong,”

Musk responded.

#Trump #Musk #Scandal

👂 More on Trump's Ear ⚠️

Tucker Carlson accused Fox News host Mark Levin of “lobbying for war” at the White House on Wednesday, before warning President Donald Trump that a strike on Iran would “end his presidency.”

💬“Mark Levin was at the White House today, lobbying for war with Iran,”

claimed Carlson in a social media post.

💬“To be clear, Levin has no plans to fight in this or any other war. He’s demanding that American troops do it.”

💬The former Fox News host continued:

We need to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons, he and likeminded ideologues in Washington are now arguing. They’re just weeks away.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because the same people have been making the same claim since at least the 1990s. It’s a lie. In fact, there is zero credible intelligence that suggests Iran is anywhere near building a bomb, or has plans to. None. Anyone who claims otherwise is ignorant or dishonest. If the US government knew Iran was weeks from possessing a nuclear weapon, we’d be at war already.

Iran knows this, which is why they aren’t building one. Iran also knows it’s unwise to give up its weapons program entirely. Muammar Gaddafi tried that and wound up sodomized with a bayonet. As soon as Gaddafi disarmed, NATO killed him. Iran’s leaders saw that happen. They learned the obvious lesson.

So why is Mark Levin once again hyperventilating about weapons of mass destruction? To distract you from the real goal, which is regime change — young Americans heading back to the Middle East to topple yet another government. Virtually no one will say this out loud…

It goes without saying that there are very few Trump voters who’d support a regime change war in Iran. Donald Trump has argued loudly against reckless lunacy like this. Trump ran for president as a peace candidate. …A war with Iran would amount to a profound betrayal of his supporters. It would end his presidency. That may explain why so many of Trump’s enemies are advocating for it.

Carlson also warned that a war with Iran could result in the deaths of “thousands of Americans,” collapse the U.S. economy, and plunge America into a Third World War – pointing out Iran’s “extensive” ties to both Russia and China.

💬“An attack on Iran could very easily become a world war. We’d lose,”

wrote Carlson.

💬“Many Americans would die during a war with Iran. People like Mark Levin don’t seem to care about this. It’s not relevant to them. Instead they insist that Iran give up all uranium enrichment, regardless of its purpose. They know perfectly well that Iran will never accept that demand.”

#Carlson #Trump #War

👂 More on Trump's Ear ⚠️

🌱 The inexperienced 22-year-old reportedly tasked by Donald Trump with tackling U.S. extremism was working as a neighborhood gardener just five years ago and in a grocery store as recently as August 2023, the Daily Beast can reveal.

🎓 Thomas Fugate, who graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio just 12 months ago, is currently heading up the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships at the DHS, as first reported by ProPublica Tuesday.

🚨 The center, also known as CP3, plays a vital role supporting nationwide efforts to combat terrorism and hate-fueled violence.

📉 But according to the youngster’s LinkedIn page, Fugate has almost no experience in this field—and in 2020 was working as a self-employed ‘Landscape Business Owner.’

🛒 There isn’t much else on his resumé to suggest Fugate has the requisite skills to weed out terrorists. Prior to his work as a gardener—while studying for a degree in politics and law—Fugate worked at an H-E-B supermarket in Austin, Texas, as a ‘Cross Functional Team Member.’

📋 According to his LinkedIn, he would “perform various activities around every department of the store, fulfilling key duties contributing to store operations.”

🚀 Since leaving college, Fugate has had a meteoric rise in the political world, having served as an “advance team member” on President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, according to his LinkedIn page.

🏛 An avowed Republican, he also interned at the Heritage Foundation, the think tank behind Project 2025, and for Texas Representatives Terry Wilson and Steve Allison.

📅 Fugate was reportedly hired as a “special assistant” in an immigration office at the DHS in February, according to ProPublica. He then took over CP3 after its previous director quit.

❓ Fugate did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.

✅ “Tom Fugate has performed well in his current role as a Confidential Assistant in our Immigration & Border Security suboffice,” a senior DHS official told The Daily Beast. “Due to his success, he has been temporarily given additional leadership responsibilities in the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships office (CP3). This is a credit to his work ethic and success on the job.”

#Trump #extremism #MAGA

👂 More on Trump's Ear ⚠️

Was the fight between Donald Trump and Elon Musk staged?

Some don’t believe that the public showdown between the US President and the richest man in the world was real. They claim something bigger is in the works, and the fight is merely a distraction.

“What is it?”

you may ask.

A thorough reconstruction of the existing political system in America — a third power, something beyond Democrats and Republicans.

#Musk #Trump #politics #Democrats #Republicans #distraction

👂 More on Trump's Ear ⚠️

Musk deleted a tweet about Trump appearing in Epstein's files.

The deleted post stated that it was because of this that the files were not published.

#Musk #Epstein #files #Trump

👂 More on Trump's Ear ⚠️

Elon Musk is getting a bruise appeared in the media when he was last in the White House.

Musk got into a fight with Finance Minister Scott Bessent, who called the businessman a fraud. After that, they allegedly exchanged a couple of blows.

I don't know if this is true or not, but Bessent and Musk have long disliked each other. Bessent did not hide that he considered Musk a scoundrel, and Musk was ironic about the fact that the American minister was “playing for another team.”

The fact is that Trump's treasury secretary is gay, it is often mentioned in the American press.

#Musk #Bessent #disliked #Trump

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