Orlando, FL
Joined April 2008
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Betsy Soler retweeted
President Obama, you spoke about someone’s life being turned upside down by the full weight of the federal government.
My wife, Bevelyn Williams, received 41 months in federal prison under Biden’s DOJ. Our daughter lost her mother’s presence at home. Emails later released by DOJ called that sentence an “incredible result” and “excellent news.”
President Trump pardoned her and reunited our family. He did the right thing.
Before you condemn him, address what your own political party did. Take the plank out of your own eye before pointing to the speck in someone else’s.
Your statement hit home. I’m speaking from passion, firsthand experience with government weaponization, and victory.
You describe Congresswoman Omar’s situation as political targeting by Trump. Reporting describes investigative activity under Biden. The magistrate judge who approved the search was selected by the district court, previously donated to Clinton and clerked for an Obama appointee.
Those facts establish neither guilt nor motive. They belong in the whole story.
So does my family.
Bevelyn is a Black Christian mother and private citizen. The protest happened in June 2020. NYPD was present both days. She wasn’t arrested at the scene. James sued her civilly in February 2021. Biden’s DOJ obtained an indictment in December 2022, approximately two and a half years later and after Dobbs.
Our family experienced retaliation after Dobbs. Her requested First Amendment jury instruction was denied. Our daughter lived with the consequences.
Letitia James had plenty of fight for my wife. New Yorkers deserved that same fight from their attorney general.
She had already pursued Bevelyn civilly. Then she publicly promised to come after her again. Meanwhile, federal inspectors documented failures in her office’s criminal enforcement against Medicaid fraud and patient abuse and neglect.
Vulnerable patients. Nursing home residents. Taxpayers. Their interests were her responsibility too.
She made pursuing my wife a public priority. Her own office’s failures became a matter of public record.
I call that vindictive politics and failed leadership.
President Obama, putting her in the victim’s chair does not erase the people her leadership failed.
DOJ’s weaponization report documents coordination with outside advocacy groups, a dossier containing information about me and our infant daughter, and sentencing disparities in the cases compared.
Congratulations were exchanged over my wife’s sentence. We faced separation.
Since your party emphasizes identity, include this: Trump pardoned a Black woman and reunited a Black family. Biden’s DOJ obtained the sentence that separated us.
My family does not hate Democrats. Disagreement does not have to become hatred.
Many Democrats, Republicans and Independents reject socialism and communism and want secure borders and safe communities. What we agree upon can help heal this nation’s fractures.
Selective outrage and incomplete stories are exhausting. Put the whole record before the American people. They can draw their own conclusions.
Our family mattered before a pardon.
Our pain deserves to matter even when our politics don’t match yours.
It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say. But that’s exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
To understand why this is so appalling, it’s important to know the facts. Congresswoman Omar came to this country with her father when she was 12 years old. Five years later, her father became a naturalized citizen. If Ilhan had been 18 at the time, she would have had to apply for citizenship separately. But because she was 17, she became a naturalized citizen automatically.
Congresswoman Omar went on to graduate from college, work as a community organizer, become the first Somali-American legislator elected to public office in the U.S., and win a seat in Congress. There, she has been one of the Trump Administration’s fiercest critics, which has led the president to repeatedly single her out as someone who he believes does not belong in this country.
Now the Administration is actively trying to deport Congresswoman Omar, seemingly based solely on the unsubstantiated theory that she was actually 18 when her father was naturalized, and therefore is not a citizen. Federal agents have raided her home, confiscated personal records, and seized her phone — all to try and uncover a nonexistent smoking gun from 20 years ago that will somehow make their case.
Think about that. The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president. And it’s not the first time this has happened. Under President Trump, the Justice Department has repeatedly gone after those he considers his political enemies — from the Attorney General of New York, to the former head of the FBI, to members of the Federal Reserve.
In those cases, the prosecutions either stalled or were dismissed for having no basis in law, and the same is likely to happen in this case. But not before Congresswoman Omar’s life has been turned upside down, her legal bills have piled up, and she’s been forced to spend time fighting unsubstantiated charges instead of serving the people of Minnesota.
The fact that any president, or any administration, is willing to engage in such transparent efforts to intimidate someone should outrage all Americans, regardless of how they feel about Congresswoman Omar’s political views. Because if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her — or that future presidents, in either party, won’t do the same.
Betsy Soler retweeted
When imams tell you they are here to conquer, believe them.
Iraq: Was Christian. Now 99% Muslim.
Syria: Was Christian. Now 93% Muslim.
Libya: Was Christian. Now 97% Muslim.
Egypt: Was Christian. Now 95% Muslim.
Sudan: Was Christian. Now 91% Muslim.
Jordan: Was Christian. Now 97% Muslim.
Turkey: Was Christian. Now 99% Muslim.
Algeria: Was Christian. Now 99% Muslim.
Lebanon: Was Christian. Now 61% Muslim.
Tunisia: Was Christian. Now 99.5% Muslim.
Morocco: Was Christian. Now 99% Muslim.
Albania: Was Christina. Now 50.7% Muslim.
Kosovo: Was Christian. Now 93.5% Muslim.
Palestinian territories: Was Christian. Now 98% Muslim.
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Was Christian. Now 51% Muslim.
Not just Christian. They conquer everyone:
Iran: Was Zoroastrian. Now 99.5% Muslim.
Malaysia: Was Hindu and Buddhist. Now 63.5–66%.
Indonesia: Was Hindu and Buddhist. Now 87% Muslim.
Pakistan: Was Hindu and Buddhist. Now 96.5% Muslim.
Bangladesh: Was Hindu and Buddhist. Now 91% Muslim.
Afghanistan: Was Zoroastrian and Buddhist. Now 99.7% Muslim.
Betsy Soler retweeted
I was Governor of New York on September 11, 2001. The planes did not simply crash into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They were hijacked and deliberately flown into those buildings by Islamist terrorists.
Betsy Soler retweeted
I wrote this because we need to start asking a simple question: Who is funding Islam in America—and why?
From a $20M mosque in Dearborn Heights funded largely by Iraq to billions flowing from Qatar, foreign influence is hiding in plain sight.
A $20M, 60,000-sq-ft mosque just opened in Dearborn Heights — largely funded by the Iraqi government. Qatar has funneled billions into U.S. universities and mosques, often bypassing FARA disclosure requirements.
@Ayaan asks who's really funding America's fastest-growing network of mega-mosques, and why.
URL: ayaan.restoringthewest.com/r…
#RestoringTheWest #ForeignInfluence #NationalSecurity
Betsy Soler retweeted
The feminists who walked around in Handmaid's Tales costumes for years are the same ones defending women in burqas
Betsy Soler retweeted
Don’t be surprised that Mamdani—a man for whom a Judenrein Middle East is his political lodestar—also wants a Judenrein NYC. About 45% of NYC lawyers are Jewish. The odds of selecting 18 NYC lawyers at random and ending up with a panel containing no Jews are 0.55 to the 18th power—or roughly one chance in 47,149.
And it’s not about “Zionism.” There are plenty of anti-Zionist Jewish lawyers he could have picked, including thousands who, to their shame, voted for him. It’s about Jews. He hates Jews. It's not complex.
Betsy Soler retweeted
Mayor Mamdani did not simply express a personal political opinion. He used the authority, symbolism, and credibility of the mayor’s office to issue what amounted to an official public address declaring that the democratically elected leader of the world’s only Jewish state is a ‘war criminal’ who is ‘not welcome in New York City.’ That is a profound misuse of the office entrusted to him by all New Yorkers.
After acknowledging that New York City has no independent legal authority to execute the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant, the mayor nevertheless chose to transform that legal reality into a televised political spectacle. Respect for the separation of powers and the legal limits of public office is a bedrock of American democracy; those limits should not be treated as an inconvenience to be exploited for political theater.
Perhaps most telling was what the mayor chose to leave out. His address made no mention of Hamas or the October 7 massacre of innocent civilians. Instead, he delivered a sweeping moral indictment of Israel while erasing the terrorist atrocities that ignited this war. Appeals to universal humanity and justice ring hollow when they exclude the victims whose suffering does not fit a preferred political narrative.
This is no longer simply about Prime Minister Netanyahu. It reflects a broader pattern in which Mayor Mamdani repeatedly singles out Israel while using the prestige of his office to legitimize rhetoric that further isolates the Jewish state and deepens division here at home. At a time when Jewish New Yorkers are experiencing alarming levels of antisemitism, harassment and intimidation, they deserve a mayor who refrains from fomenting hatred against the world’s only Jewish country while maintaining the fiction that this is not anti-Jewish.
Throughout his campaign, Mayor Mamdani repeatedly insisted that his responsibility as mayor would be to focus on New York City and the issues affecting New Yorkers. New Yorkers elected him to make their neighborhoods safer, combat hate and unite a diverse city, not to conduct foreign policy or transform City Hall into a stage for ideological declarations about world leaders.
New Yorkers elected a mayor, not a prosecutor of foreign leaders. Mayor Mamdani should spend less time trying to demonize only one leader and one country from City Hall and more time protecting the New Yorkers he was elected to serve.
#Mamdani #MayorMamdani #Israel
Betsy Soler retweeted
Rape is rape. Trying to deflect from an increase in rapes by turning it into a numbers game is absolutely disgusting.
If anyone else made a statement like that, it would be front page news & career ending. Elected’s should never minimize the experiences of survivors.
NEW: @NYCMayor addresses @JulieMenin concerns of rape and felony assaults on the rise by saying the definition has changed.
“A lot of the increase in rape, comes from an expanded definition of what counts as rape,” says Mamdani.
Stands by not increasing number of officers.
Betsy Soler retweeted
2015. CNN does a segment on the growing trend/business of the Chinese using U.S. surrogates to have their babies in America.
"Their child will be a U.S. citizen."
Imagine believing that the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship should apply to this.
Betsy Soler retweeted
For the record, Drag Queen Story Hour now receives more city funding than the Department of Veterans Services.
Understand where we are.
Betsy Soler retweeted
You mean men, men who claim to be women. You are a national broadcaster that consistently obfuscates facts around sex because you’ve taken an ideological position the public overwhelmingly rejects. This isn’t news, it’s propaganda.
US Supreme Court upholds bans on transgender women in female school and college sports bbc.in/44EMCbg
Betsy Soler retweeted
Imagine if, in the aftermath of 9/11, someone told you within 25 years someone like this would be getting elected in NYC — would you have believed it?
Betsy Soler retweeted
Imagine your family worked for a generation to save enough money to buy a brownstone occupied with rent stabilized tenants on the Upper West Side. The family financed the purchase with a mortgage from a bank based on the premise that rents and cash flow would at least keep pace with inflation so you could pay interest and principal on the mortgage and hopefully have some cash flow left as a return on your investment.
While you had rent stabilized tenants, you were led to believe that the NYC Rent Guidelines Board would be required to adjudicate rental increases each year by taking a measure of the inflation of costs to own and operate a building and setting rental increases appropriately.
You believed the RGB would do its job as the board is comprised of two representatives each for landlords and tenants and five independent representatives that represent the general public.
Now, a new mayor @NYCMayor Mamdani is elected on the promise of freezing rents. There are about two million rent stabilized renters that benefit if rents are frozen so by promising frozen rents the new candidate for mayor buys votes and wins the election.
The new mayor achieves his objective by stacking the RGB with directors who do not follow their obligations and simply vote for a rent freeze as a preordained conclusion as evidenced by the statements of an RGB director who resigned in protest for this very reason.
Meanwhile, inflation in NYC is rampant in utilities, real estate taxes, insurance, repairs and maintenance, etc. and now your rents are frozen. Real estate is a high operating leverage business which means that frozen rents and inflating expenses will cause property cash flows to plummet and your after debt service cash flow to go negative.
I expect therefore there will be hundreds if not thousands of small NYC property owners who are now or will shortly be underwater on their mortgages, and without any cash flow to maintain their assets.
If you remember the images of the South Bronx burning in the mid 1970s, you can viscerally understand what is happening to small NYC real estate owners.
While the rent freeze appears to be short-term good news (long term it will lead to poorly maintained apartments) for 2 million NYC renters, it is bad news for the 2 million or more renters in the 1 million market rate apartments in the City because a landlord-hostile market is not likely to add meaningfully more supply and market rents will likely continue to escalate at a high rate.
All of this seems quite unfair and wrong unless I missing something?
Why am I wrong?
For disclosure: I do not own any NYC rental apartments.
There's no freeze on property tax.
There's no freeze on the wages paid to landscapers, plumbers, electricians, drywallers, flooring installers.
There's no freeze on the cost of lumber, copper, baseboard, quarter rounds, flashing, siding, window treatments.
There's no freeze on the wages paid to janitors or porters.
There's no freeze on utilities -- on electric, gas, water, sewer (building-paid utilities in hallways, lobbies, maintenance corridors; most buildings pay water and sewer for tenants).
There are currently 57,421 units sitting vacant in NYC because it's more cost-effective to leave them empty than it is to rent them out.
If you're wondering: "How that could be possible? Wouldn't making anything be better than making nothing?" -- the answer is no, because of the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act.
The HSTPA mandated a certain level of renovation for a vacant unit, but did not allow landlords to raise the rent enough to be able to recoup those costs.
If a long-term tenant moves out after decades, the apartment often requires $50,000 to $100,000 in lead abatement, new wiring, plumbing, and structural renovations.
Because the law heavily restricts how much of that cost can be passed to the next tenant.
The HSPTA eliminated the "vacancy bonus" (which allowed automatic 20% rent increases when a tenant left) and heavily capped Individual Apartment Improvements (IAIs).
This means landlords who want a renovation loan would be rejected by a bank, because the landlord would not be able to show that they could repay that loan.
Landlords who pay out-of-pocket would end up losing money, underperforming even what they could get by putting their money in a U.S. Treasury or gov't bond.
Therefore, it's more cost-effective to just leave the unit vacant.
That's why we have 57,421 vacant units across New York right now.
That number is about to get much worse.
Betsy Soler retweeted
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