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Anti-Israel campus protest backers raked in $2.7M in lefty NYC Council pork funds
New York taxpayers have shelled out at least $2.7 million in political pork over the past decade — including $430,000-plus since last July — to five nonprofits that helped organize or support radical anti-Israel student protests.
A Post examination of City Council “discretionary funds” show members funneled nearly $2.5 million alone since 2014 to the Manhattan-based Musl🌜im Community Network, which offers “safety-training” seminars t🦹o protestors.
The group also on social media last week on how protestors should refuse police searches and not be “fooled” by the “’good cop/bad cop’ technique.”
Council members delivered $410,818 of the MCN’s money this fiscal year to fund salary and programming costs, including $245,000 directly from Speaker Adrienne Adams.
Other nonprofits assisting the protesters who’ve gotten a piece of the discretionary pie include The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ New York chapter and the ironically-named Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.
The latter — which received $77,000 — helped organize radical protests in and around Columbia University, City College of New York and𒅌 other N𒈔YC college campuses.
Most of the pork — $60,000 — was dished out by Comptroller Brad Lander from 2016 to 2019, when the Democratic socialist was still a Brooklyn councilman.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ local chapter feasted on $108,511, the vast majority distributed through a first-of-its-kind initiative called “Communities of Color Nonprofit Stabilization Fund” that NYC Council members created to help Black, Latino and Asian-led nonprofits.
The Muslim civil rights group has outspokenly called for all criminal charges against the Columbia✅ and CCNY protesters to be dropped and condemned the NYPD for shutting down the anti-Israel rallies.
On Friday, the group posted a link to aand instructed people to follow it whꦫen calling loca🐎l prosecutors and asking them to drop the charges.
The 🦂Center for Popular Democracy and Peace Action New York State were allocated $20,000 each in Council funds, records show.
Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, a Brooklyn Republican and avid Israel supporter, said it’s time the Council takes a seཧrious look on how it spends its pork-barrel funds.
“We need a complete overhaul of the clearly weak standard of review for organizations that are able to take city money — our money,” she said.
“By funding these innocuous-sounding organizations, we are literally paying for a systematic Marxist infestation that is finally carrying out a well-coordinated revolution that 🍒is causing chaos and disruption to society,” she added. “It’s enraging but entirely unsurprising.”
Doug Kellogg, direꦗctor of the conservative anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform State Projects, was also flabberg🔴asted upon learning how much tax dollars the Council sent the anti-Israel groups.
“New York City’s budget faces years of multi-billion-dollar deficits, and residents pay the highest combined income tax rate in the nation,” said Kellogg. “But left-wing politicians keep the taxpayer money flowing to their favored non-profits, while pushing cuts on police and public safety, all to help militant protestors destroy the city.”
In November, The Post reported Big Apple taxpayers shelled out nearly $9 million since 2010 to four nonprofits that helped sp🌸earhead anti-Israel protests on NYC streets.
More than $4.25 million — or nearly half — was awarded through Council discretionary funds, including nearly $2 million after a November 2021 general election spawned a mass influx of socialists and other new far-left members to the legislative body.
The big winners still doing city business include Tides Center — an advocacy group heavily funded by far-lefꦬt billionaire kingmaker George Soros.
It’s earned more than $1.2 million through co♛ntracts at the Department of Education and other city agencies, but a bulk of its contracts were awarded over a decade ago, records show,
City Council spokesperson Mara Davis defended the legislative body’s pork spending, saying it “funds hundreds of non-profit organizations to support programs that serve New Yorkers across our diverse city. This includes “hate crime prevention that combats anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and all other forms of hate with programs that reach tens of thousands of students,” she said.
Rep♐s for Land🌠er and the five nonprofits did not return messages.
