Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on why Amazon bolted from New York City:

Amazon was ready to provide jobs for 25,000 to 40,000 New Yorkers, bringing in an estimated $27 billion in tax revenue over 25 years. It was asking for $3 billion in government incentives, a figure that surely could have been negotiated to reflect a more realistic deal. But instead of working with Amazon, left-wing New York lawmakers and activists trashed the corporation, pushing it to relocate elsewhere.

To show how radical the Left has become in New York City, the New York Times ran a front-page headline that no one ever expected to read: “Stunning Loss for Cuomo and de Blasio is Win for Left.”

If these two left-wing politicians are no longer considered part of the Left, then the Left is unrecognizable. Who’s left? Fanatics and economic illiterates?

No one was happier killing the Amazon jobs than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the heralded friend of the poor who was raised in a tony Westchester neighborhood and who now lives in a luxury apartment building in Washington, D.C. She accused Amazon of “worker exploitation.”

She did not explain why workers who were slated to earn an average salary of $150,000 should be considered exploited. Nor did those union leaders who worked to scrub the Amazon deal.

Ocasio-Cortez and her flock may talk a good game on helping the poor, but in reality they are the poor’s worst nightmare. Consider the following data.

A recent Siena College poll revealed that 70% of black voters wanted the Amazon deal. Among Latinos, the figure jumped to 81%. Only a slight majority of whites, 51%, wanted it.

A Quinnipiac University poll found that those who were the most likely to support the deal lived in the city’s poorest borough, the Bronx. Queens, where the jobs were to be anchored, was the second most supportive. The richest of the five boroughs, Manhattan, was the least supportive.

As with the Siena survey, Latinos were the most supportive, followed closely by blacks; whites were the least supportive.

In other words, the poor got hosed by their professed friends. As we have seen time and again in history, the poor are more likely to be oppressed than liberated by those who champion their cause.

Contact Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff: Saikat.Chakrabarti@mail.house.gov

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Georgetown’s latest debacle over slavery:

The idea that Georgetown University should pay reparations for slavery has been kicking around for a few years on the Jesuit campus. In 1838, Georgetown sold 272 slaves to help pay off its debts. Now there is a proposal that would require students to pay for it: a student fee would be assessed.

The referendum is a joke. Why are students dishing up cash for something they had nothing to do with? Why aren’t members of the board of directors (many of whom are millionaires), administrators, the faculty, and alumni paying for it? They represent the university more than the students, and they have the kind of money the students don’t have. Why are they allowing this exercise in regressive taxation—the kind the professors rail about all the time in the classroom—to take place?

It’s even more absurd than this. All of these parties to this grand display of white guilt are phonies. Georgetown employs a professor, Jonathan Brown, who justifies slavery.

In 2017, the convert to Islam told the crowd at the Institute for Islamic Thought, where he teaches, that “there is no such thing as slavery.” Indeed, he said, “I don’t think you can talk about slavery in Islam until you realize that there is no such thing as slavery.”

Some student should ask this wizard why there is slavery in Mauritania and Somalia today. The masters are Muslims. They may also want to ask him to explain why he says, “Slavery cannot be treated as a moral evil in and of itself.” It would be enlightening to learn why.

If the Georgetown ruling class is okay with having a tenured professor teaching that slavery is not necessarily a moral evil—in the 21st century—why are they so exercised about slavery in the 19th century? Finally, if the students have to pony up, shouldn’t Brown be hit with a surcharge?

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the end to the Covington Catholic controversy:

The innocent students at Covington Catholic High School have finally achieved closure. An investigative report, conducted by a private detective agency commissioned by the Diocese of Covington, has exonerated the students. Four investigators interviewed dozens of students and chaperones, and watched hundreds of hours of videos.

Just as we have been saying from the get-go, none of the students did anything wrong. They have been completely exonerated.

Indeed, Covington Bishop Roger J. Foys, who initially criticized the students before learning of new evidence from a second video, commended the boys, saying, “We should not have allowed ourselves to be bullied and pressured into making a statement prematurely.”

It is worth recalling the invidious stereotypes that were quickly advanced by critics of the students. Not all the unfair critics were anti-Catholic bigots—some were Catholics who got sucked into this mad rush to judgment; some of them were also guilty of harboring stereotypes.

Here is a list of the most commonly cited false charges against the students:

• The fact that Covington was Catholic was cited by anti-Catholic bigots who argued that Catholic teaching was responsible for their hatred.
• White privilege was mentioned by self-hating whites as a causative factor that explained the students’ racism.
• Charges that the boys screamed “build that wall” at the Indian instigator were made by knee-jerk bullies—the investigation proves that no student chanted this refrain.
• Pro-abortion fanatics blamed the March for Life for having the Covington Catholic students participate.
• Violence against Nick Sandmann, the student who stood his ground against the Indian agitator, was encouraged by peaceniks.
• MAGA (Make America Great Again) hats worn by some of the students were seized upon by Trump haters as proof of their bigotry and intolerance.
• White racists, who always see Indians as victims and whites as victimizers, called the students racists. For the same reason, they also refused to condemn the black thugs who made many bigoted remarks.

Sandmann has filed a lawsuit against many public persons who defamed him. We wish him well.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s abortion law:

Exactly three weeks after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed his abortion law, which allows non-physicians to perform abortions up until the baby is born—and provides no criminal penalties for infanticide—he met with President Donald Trump. According to the White House, Trump “raised his concerns to Governor Cuomo about Democrats’ support of late-term abortions.”

When Cuomo was asked about this, he blamed Trump for promoting “division.”

In other words, Cuomo, who lit up the sky of New York in pink to celebrate killing children in and out of the womb, was totally unable to defend his barbaric law. If he had any guts, he would have told the president why it is important to praise his bloody law.

Perhaps most important, Cuomo is factually wrong to say that discussing his bill is divisive. There is nothing divisive about it. Every survey ever taken shows that the public has no stomach for late-term abortions, never mind infanticide. Even those who identify as pro-choice cannot stomach Cuomo’s law. So who’s left? What a class group of people they must be.

This is the biggest mistake Cuomo has ever made. He will never get over it, and neither will those Democrats who agree with him. One does not have to be a conservative to figure this out: CNN’s editor-at-large, Chris Cillizza, did yesterday in a post titled, “How Democrats are Handing Donald Trump a Viable Path to a Second Term.”

Contact Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor: melissa.derosa@exec.ny.gov

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the reaction to Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax:

In all likelihood, future generations will look back at this time in American history as one where fundamental due process rights for men accused of sexual crimes were jettisoned. From false accusations made against Catholic priests, to the wholly unfounded accusations made against Brett Kavanaugh, we have seen a mad rush to judgment, indicting the accused.

The latest to be subjected to this travesty of justice is Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax. First a woman accuses him of sexually abusing her in July 2004 during the Democratic National Convention. Then another woman emerges, claiming she was abused in 2000 when she and Fairfax were students at Duke University. This same woman now says she was raped by a Duke basketball player while in school.

Fairfax and the athlete, Corey Maggette, vehemently deny the charges.

Fairfax’s first accuser, Vanessa Tyson, says she does not want to press charges, and the second one, Meredith Watson, says she came forward “out of a strong sense of civic duty.”

Neither woman has taken their accusations to the courts. Why not? Why are they content to try Fairfax in the court of public opinion? Is it because the current hostile environment for males accused of sexual crimes favors the accusers? College men can speak to this issue with authority.

There has been no evidence that Fairfax is guilty of sexual abuse. Yet presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris managed somehow to determine that the first accusation was “credible.” Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has no evidence either, but he is satisfied calling for Fairfax to resign. Ditto for Sen. Tim Kaine—he called on Fairfax to resign over “atrocious crimes,” even though the Lt. Gov. has not been convicted of anything.

BET co-founder Robert Johnson has put up $150,000 to hire a law firm, to be selected by all three parties to this dispute, to investigate this matter. Both accusers said no. What does that tell us?

Sexual abuse is a serious crime and those guilty of it should be treated harshly. But unsubstantiated accusations should never be treated as dispositive, and this is doubly true of those who refuse to access the courts to settle these matters.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s status as a congresswoman:

I stand with my friend Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, calling for Rep. Ilhan Omar to be removed from House committee assignments.

Rep. Omar delights in fomenting anti-Semitism, and has a particular animus against Israel. Her most explicit offensive remark came in 2012 when she said, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

Her most recent offensive comment came yesterday when she accused AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) of paying congressmen to be pro-Israel. “It’s all about the Benjamins baby” is how she put it. There is no evidence to support this irresponsible claim.

The Catholic League also supports the resolution by Rep. Lee Zeldin, H. Res. 72, that calls on all congressmen to reject “anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hatred in the United States and around the world.” Rep. Zeldin, who hails from Long Island, is known to Catholics for his strong pro-life voting record.

Rep. Omar also has a problem with Catholics. Last month I wrote to House Ethics Committee chairman Rep. Ted Deutch and Ranking Member Rep. Kenny Marchant about her. I asked them to impose sanctions on her for her vicious attack on innocent students from Covington Catholic High School.

Omar tweeted the following: “The boys were protesting a woman’s right to choose & yelled ‘it’s not rape if you enjoy it’—They were taunting 5 Black men before they surrounded [Nathan] Phillips and led racist chants….”

None of the Covington students ever said such a cruel remark. If Omar had any evidence she would not have taken down her tweet: she would have made the video available. As we now know, the boys did not taunt anyone or make racist comments—they were the ones being provoked.

Rule XXIII, Section 1, of the Code of Official Conduct says House members must “behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.” Omar violated this stricture by libeling the Covington students and promoting anti-Catholicism at the same time.

Rep. Omar sits on the Budget, Education and Labor, and Foreign Affairs committees of the House. She should be removed from all three. In particular, the idea of having someone with an animus against Jews and Catholics sitting on the Foreign Affairs committee in judgment of Israel and the Holy See is too much bear.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the need for a New York State law that criminalizes the murder of a pregnant woman’s baby:

A week ago yesterday, a New Yorker from Queens, Anthony Hobson, beat and dragged his girlfriend, Jennifer Irigoyen, down a flight of stairs and then stabbed her in the neck, abdomen and torso. He stabbed her in the stomach because he wanted to kill the baby he fathered (some news stories say she was 14 weeks pregnant and others put the figure at 20 weeks). The pregnant woman shouted, “He’s got a knife. He’s going to kill the baby!”

Hobson killed both the woman and her baby. He was immediately charged with two crimes, but the charge for killing her baby was subsequently dropped: it was noted that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new abortion law provides no penalties for the killing of unborn children; abortion was removed from the criminal code and inserted into the public health law. Cuomo has not commented on what he has wrought.

The Albany lawmaker who sponsored the bill that Cuomo lobbied for, State Sen. Liz Krueger, and her colleague in the senate, Anna Kaplan, authored an article in the Times Union that disagrees with the Queens prosecutor’s interpretation of the law. They say there is nothing in the law that prevents any prosecutor from charging someone like Hobson for a crime. They say Hobson could be prosecuted for first-degree assault, a sentence that is harsher than the previous sentence for “unlawful abortion.”

Who’s got the better of the argument? The only way to settle this is to have clarity, and that means a new statute needs to be written that addresses this issue. We are calling on Sen. Krueger to work with other lawmakers, in both chambers, to draft legislation that makes it a crime to murder the baby of a pregnant woman.

Contact Carolyn Burke at Sen. Krueger’s office: carolynburke100@gmail.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the reaction to blackface antics:

What’s wrong with blackface? What ethical rule is broken by those who think it is funny? Surely not a rule which finds it morally objectionable to mimic another racial, ethnic, or religious group.

In the Arts section of the February 7 edition of the New York Times, there was an article, “Singer Begins New Phase ‘Stripping Off the Veil,'” that featured drag artist Charles Busch. A photo captures him dancing in his new cabaret show, “Native New Yorker.” He is wearing a nun’s habit, pulling his garb well above his knees so he can display his black stockings. The caption below notes he is wearing his “drag costume.”

I have never heard of Charles Busch until now, but that’s because I don’t go to homosexual events. To be blunt, his immature antics are not my concern. The New York Times is.

The New York Times objects to blackface stunts but finds it entirely acceptable to publish a photo of a man in drag mocking nuns.

Similarly, this same newspaper never objects to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a tax-exempt organization based in San Francisco that features homosexual men dressed in a nun’s habit; they mock them in several ways. Those who defend this group say the Sisters give to charity.

Maybe we need an Al Jolson Society to test the moral compass of the Times. Imagine white guys with blackface who mock blacks while donating money to fight sickle cell anemia. What would the Times say about that?

We already know the answer. It would object. But on what basis? It would say blacks were slaves and therefore nothing that offends them can be tolerated. But not all blacks were slaves. In fact, some blacks owned black slaves in the U.S. and in Africa. Moreover, some Catholics were slaves, including St. Patrick.

This can get complicated. If only the New York Times would say so. Then it might adopt a principled stand for everyone, instead of protecting some while offending others.

Contact Caryn Ganz, pop music editor of the New York Times: Caryn.Ganz@nytimes.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an op-ed in today’s New York Times by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo:

No public official in America is more pro-abortion than New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. He proved that again today when he penned a rousing op-ed in the New York Times defending abortion at any time and for virtually any reason. He also distorted the truth about the bill he championed.

Cuomo says that bills like the one he signed “merely codify existing federal law and firmly established practices.” Nonsense.

Cuomo’s bill goes beyond Roe v. Wade by allowing babies born alive as a result of a botched abortion to die without medical intervention. It also allows persons who never went to medical school to perform abortions: The 1973 decision does not authorize non-physicians to perform abortions.

Cuomo says his bill permits abortion after 24 weeks “only when a woman’s life or health is threatened or at risk.” He knows exactly what that means. It means that any abortionist can “decide” that the woman’s mental health may be at risk—she may suffer depression—if she has to take care of the baby she doesn’t want.

Amherst professor and Catholic League advisory board member Hadley Arkes has a piece today in The Catholic Thing that recalls what happened in the 1970s when a child survived an abortion for twenty days. Did the attending doctor have an obligation to save the baby?

Arkes notes that Circuit Court Judge Clement Haynsworth ruled that once the woman decides she wants her child aborted, “the fetus in this case was not a person whose life state law could protect.” Arkes rightly explains that “In other words, the right to an abortion was the right to an ‘effective abortion’ or a dead child.”

Cuomo obviously sides with Haynsworth, which is why his bill would allow for infanticide. He should admit it and stop pretending otherwise.

Would anyone in his right mind allow a dental assistant to do a root canal? Why, then, is it morally acceptable to allow non-physicians to perform abortions? If, as often happens, there are complications—the woman is bleeding badly and needs a doctor to attend to her—how will the staff explain to her family that they did not have the training to help her?

If Cuomo’s defense of this bill isn’t objectionable enough, his history of trotting out his Catholic credentials—which are now in tatters—is obnoxious. He tells us again about being an altar boy, as if that gives him a pass to publicly flout the Church’s teaching on abortion.

“My Roman Catholic values are my personal values,” Cuomo says. Not true. Roman Catholic values, as noted in the Catechism, do not support acts which are “intrinsically evil.” Abortion is at the top of that list.

Cuomo digs himself in even deeper when he contends that he makes decisions “based on my personal moral and religious beliefs.” But those religious beliefs are not in any way Catholic, at least not when it comes to issues like abortion and marriage.

Echoing his father, Mario, he says, “I do not believe that religious values should drive political positions.” But abortion is about biology, not religion. Is Cuomo allowing his religion to drive his objections to the death penalty? Both he and the Catholic Church are opposed to it.

Worse still is Cuomo’s contrived victim status.

Citing his allegiance to separation of church and state, he says “the country cannot function if religious officials are dictating policy to elected officials.” Who is dictating policy to him? He mentions New York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan in his article. If he has evidence that Dolan is dictating to him, he should hold a press conference and share it with us. Otherwise, he needs to stop with the drama.

Telling the truth about this subject is a real challenge for Cuomo. He writes that most Catholics, like most Americans, support Roe v. Wade. Wrong. That decision allows abortion for virtually any reason through term, and that is not what most Americans want.

In 2013, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that seven in ten Americans believe Roe should stand (this is the kind of survey Cuomo leans on). But when asked whether there should be exceptions, 67 percent said there should be, thus disagreeing with what Roe allows.

In 2015, I commissioned a survey of Catholics on a range of issues. The survey found that 17% said abortion should be prohibited in all circumstances; 17% said it should be legal only to save the life of the mother; and 27% said it should be legal only in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. That’s 61% who are mostly pro-life and who disagree with Roe.

In 2018, Gallup found that a majority of Americans, 53%, said that abortion should be legal in only a few circumstances (35%) or in no circumstances (18%). This means that most Americans reject abortion-on-demand, thus rejecting the sweeping scope of Roe.

For reasons that only he can explain, Cuomo has laid anchor on abortion, promoting it with a vigor that is unnerving even to those who are “pro-choice.” He needs to talk to someone. A priest would help.

Contact Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor: melissa.derosa@exec.ny.gov

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on media reaction to Sen. Cory Booker’s questioning of a Trump judicial nominee:

Sen. Cory Booker, like so many Democrats these days, has a problem with religion. But fortunately for him, the media are giving him cover.

Not one of the mainstream newspapers or wire services reported on Booker’s badgering of U.S. Appeals Court nominee Neomi Rao. On February 5, Booker sought to pressure her to discuss whether she thinks homosexuality is sinful. With the exception of NBC and Fox News, none of the broadcast TV stations or cable news outlets covered this story.

Booker has gay sex on his mind. “Are gay relationships, in your opinion, immoral?” He then went for the kill. “So you’re not willing to say here…whether you believe it is sinful for two men to be married, you’re not willing to comment on that?” (My italic.)

Why have most of the media refused to run this story? Is it because they know that religion has become the third rail for Democrats? Is this why they decided not to draw attention to Booker’s religion-baiting?

How far do Booker, and all the Democrats he speaks for (which is most of them these days), want to push this line of questioning?

Hinduism is Rao’s religion. Mortal sins in her religion, which are known as the Mahapatakas, include showing disrespect for a teacher. On the Sabbath, Orthodox Jews are prohibited from writing two or more letters. Islam regards as sinful a woman’s bad conduct toward her husband (but not vice versa).

Are Booker and his fellow Democrats prepared to ask prospective federal court appointees, who ascribe to these religions, if they regard such practices as sinful?

Booker was raised in a Christian family. He is also an admitted sex offender. Does he think Christianity is wrong to regard fornication, adultery, and homosexuality as sinful? Was it sinful of him to grope a drunken 15-year-old girl when he was in high school? He bragged about it when he was in college. Was that sinful?

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said that “Sin is very serious, but it is more serious to deny sin.” It would be instructive to know what Booker thinks about that, and how he decides what is sinful and what is not. After all, if the Ten Commandments don’t count, why should opinions matter, including his?