Liberal group accused of antisemitic post – The Riverdale Press

By Sachi McClendon

The liberal political group No IDC NY was accused of playing with antisemitic tropes following a post from its Twitter account that jeered at the last names of two Jewish politicians Congressional-candidate Dan Goldman and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz.

The jerk buying a House seat with inherited money is Goldman the IDC-adjacent Assembly member is DINOwitz. Who came up with these names, Dickens? the post read.

U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, who is running for the new seat serving greater Riverdale, was the first to call attention to the since-deleted post. A tweet dripping with antisemitism. The normalization of antisemitism is a sign of how poisonous our politics has become, he wrote.

Assemblyman Dinowitz responded to the tweet soon after, writing, Ive been the target of antisemitic attacks from both the far right and the far left. This tweet from an extremist, anonymous account selectively singles out two Jewish politicians and is disgusting. Its a classic display of antisemitism and should be condemned.

Following the swift backlash, the No IDC NY account wrote, It was a joke about the names that certainly would have been better not made, e.g. DINO stands for Dem in name only, and was not supposed to be riffing off their Jewishness, we do not tolerate anti-Semitism.

The next day, the steering committee of the group said it suspended the social media account manager who sent the original tweet.

No IDC NY was initially formed to help take down members of the Independent Democratic Conference, like former Sen. Jeff Klein, who caucused with Republicans in the state senate as a way to maintain the GOPs majority, even when Democrats would have otherwise had control.

The New York City Districting Commission has received more than 8,300 submissions from the public on how to improve upon the first draft of the new city council district lines.

Thats way more than the 1,500 submissions the commission got in the previous round of redistricting. In fact, the New York State Independent Redistricting Commission, responsible for state legislative and congressional districts, last year generated only 3,700 submissions by comparison.

We made a decision early in the process that we were going to throw as wide a net as possible to solicit public opinion for the preliminary plan, said Dennis Walcott, who is the chair of the commission. In order to get as much public input as possible, the commission has been advertising in community and ethnic weeklies, on Twitter and Instagram and providing a wide array of information sessions to community groups across the city.

We had such a tremendous response we had to extend our Queens hearing past midnight and added a morning Zoom hearing because demand to testify was so high, Walcott said.

The commission is expected to submit its second round of drafts to council on Sept. 22.

State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who still represents greater Riverdale, was easily defeated by incumbent Sean Patrick Maloney in the newly drawn congressional district 17 Democratic primary, managing to capture only about a third of the vote.

Common sense won. Democrats want candidates who get results and bring home the win, Maloney said after the race was called in his favor.

Biaggi decided to run an against-the-odds campaign against Maloney shortly after the new congressional maps were finalized back in May. Just minutes after the new maps dropped, fifth-term Maloney went to Twitter to say that he would be running in the new district 17, which is currently represented by first-term progressive Mondaire Jones.

That announcement quickly drew the ire of several lawmakers, and propelled Biaggi to take on Maloney. While she is no stranger to upset victories, Biaggi was no match for Maloney in the end.

Although she already bought a home in the new congressional district 17, Biaggi will continue to serve as state senator until the new lines go into effect next year.

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Liberal group accused of antisemitic post - The Riverdale Press