C-SPAN ditches House Republicans’ Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg hearings, fueling bias claims

 C-SPAN is under fire over accusations of lefty bias for declining to air two consecutive hearings held by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee – including one slated for Monday that’s expected to shed light on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s decision to indict former President Trump.

Tense exchanges between C-SPAN honchos and judiciary committee staffers have been revealed in emails examined by Fox News Digital regarding coverage of a February hearing held in Yuma, Ariz., that focused on border issues, and another planned for Monday in the Big Apple focusing on violent crime surging in Manhattan.

The latter is all but certain to spotlight a soft-on-crime progressive prosecutor’s controversial indictment of Trump, a Republican, on alleged hush money payments to reputed former paramours.

“I wanted to reach out to you as soon as I could to let you know that we won’t be able [to] send a crew to cover the House Judiciary field hearing on Victims of Violent Crime in Manhattan on Monday,” C-SPAN assignment desk manager Jon Kelley wrote to staffers Wednesday. “I know it is making a lot of news and we did look at possible coverage but we just don’t have the resources at this time.”

One of the hearings included one slated for Monday that’s expected to shed light on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s decision to indict former President Trump.

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“Are you all serious?” a committee staffer fired back. “It’s the biggest hearing in Congress that I can think of.”

“I just wanted to let you know as soon as I could,” Kelley replied. 

Prior to the hearing Feb. 23 hearing on border issues, C-SPAN congressional editor Robb Harleston told committee staff in a Feb. 14 email it would not cover the hearing because “we’re concerned about the absence of Dem members.”

The former president is facing a total of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, which each carry a maximum sentence of four years behind bars.

AP

“That’s a very disappointing decision,” a committee staffer responded. “The Democratic members were invited, and it’s still unknown if they will participate. We hope they do. To be clear: This is an official U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary hearing. The Committee has jurisdiction over immigration and border policies, and it should be worthy of C-SPAN’s coverage. We would really hate for this to damage our relationship going forward.”

“I appreciate your disappointment. If there’s any concrete decisions regarding Democratic involvement, we might reconsider,” Harleston replied.

“They didn’t cover our hearing down in Yuma, Arizona, on the border when they should have, they’ve indicated they’re not going to cover this,” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan told Fox Business.

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

C-SPAN is a nonprofit public service outlet known for airing government proceedings and public affairs programming.

The back-to-back snubs by C-SPAN — which have fueled allegations of political bias — were first reported by Julio Rosas from Townhall.com.

“They didn’t cover our hearing down in Yuma, Arizona, on the border when they should have, they’ve indicated they’re not going to cover this,” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told Fox Business Thursday.

“Democrats are going to be there at this hearing [in Manhattan]… I don’t know why C-SPAN wouldn’t, but I think it just shows their bias.”  

C-SPAN did not respond to requests for comment.  

https://nypost.com/2023/04/15/c-span-doesnt-air-gop-bragg-house-hearings-some-claim-bias/

Portland cops clear deserted shopping center turned drug market

 Portland police finally cleared out a deserted shopping center in the city’s notoriously empty downtown — a building once described as being straight out of the zombie HBO show “The Last of Us.”

The center’s owner, Barry Menashe, is working with officials to board up the building and eradicate what The Oregonian called “rampant drug trafficking.”

The vacant center had become an open-air drug market and was in “crisis mode,” the Daily Mail reported.

Portland has one of the most deserted downtowns in the United States.

Soaring crime rates and homelessness scare away both locals and tourists. 

Conservative journalist Andy Ngo said the building looked like a scene from the HBO video game adaptation “The Last of Us.”

Police swooped in early Wednesday, finding evidence of squatters but no people, according to reports.

Portland police used battering rams and other means to clear out an open-air drug market at a vacant shopping center in the city’s deserted downtown.

Instagram/@ppbcentralbikesquad

Portland cops make their way through a deserted and dangerous shopping center known to be a drug market.

Instagram/@ppbcentralbikesquad

Portland Police arrested a second person while clearing out a vacant shopping center.

Instagram/@ppbcentralbikesquad

In 2021, there were 90 homicides amid a surge in gun violence in Portland, which shattered the city’s previous record high of 66 set more than three decades ago. 

There were 101 murders recorded in 2022 — a new record for the city, which has more than 700 homeless encampments scattered across the city within less than 150 square miles.

Soaring crime rates and homelessness scare away both locals and tourists. 

In 2021, there were 90 homicides amid a surge in gun violence in Portland.

Tent cities have overrun many of the most charming and once sought-after areas of Portland. Many neighborhoods are littered with trash. 

Portland City Council rushed to return funds to the police in November 2021 after defunding them by more than $15 million in 2020. Officials voted to add $5.4 million to the force’s budget.

https://nypost.com/2023/04/15/portland-cops-clear-dystopian-deserted-shopping-center/

NYC drug dealers hawk narcotics from van, driving up business for nearby injection sites

 Drug dealers in Washington Heights are peddling product out of a sketchy black van — driving up business for a state-sanctioned narcotics shooting gallery only a few blocks away, neighbors and eyewitnesses said.

The apparently illicit deals are going down at the corner of West 178th Street and Audubon Avenue, where a steady stream of junkies walking past fruit sellers and doctors’ offices to reach a beat-up van parked beneath scaffolding.

As a group of young men acts as lookouts from the sidewalk, customers reach into the driver’s-side window to score drugs before bolting down the street, residents say.

“I’ve lived here for 25 years on this block, and I want to move because it’s crazy,” said one long-time resident who works across the street.

The Post last week witnessed one woman with track marks on her hands make an exchange with the man in the van before bee-lining to the OnPoint NYC injection site three blocks away. 

Ten minutes later, the woman was seen heading across the street to Highbridge Park with a friend.

Others who were seen leaving OnPoint that day also entered the park and shot up with fresh needles.  

A woman bolted after her apparent drug exchange.

Since opening the nation’s first “safe injection site” in 2021, OnPoint NYC has offered addicts-sanctioned spaces in Washington Heights and East Harlem to get high under medical supervision.

It also gives users clean paraphernalia to snort or inject their substances of choice, on-site or elsewhere. 

More than 3,100 people have visited OnPoint’s “overdose prevention centers” and used its facilities over 68,000 times since opening in November 2021, according to its website.

The organization said it has prevented nearly 850 overdoses that could have proven fatal. 

OnPoint has said that it relies on private funding because legally it cannot collect taxpayer dollars to run an overdose prevention center.

But The Post previously found that OnPoint’s two precursor nonprofits, New York Harm Reduction Educators and Washington Heights CORNER Project, raked in more than $5 million in city and state funds from 2020 to 2022, which the organization’s head claims is used to cover services offered beyond the “safe [drug] consumption program.”

Neighbors said the Washington Heights location only contributes to the scourge of open-air drug dealing and use, which they say has surged during the pandemic. 

“The center definitely had an effect on the amount of users coming up to Washington Heights,” said one elderly man, who now refuses to go outside after 6 p.m. for fear of his safety.

“They’ve inundated the area, and it’s become garbage in the neighborhood.”

Neighbors near the injection sight said that the center has contributed to the scourge of open-air drug use and sales in the area.

J.C.RICE

The man’s daughter, who fled Washington Heights for Park Slope, Brooklyn, two years ago but still visits her dad, added that dealers near OnPoint have been doing brisk business since the injection site’s opening.

“They have a customer base, and it’s more people now,” she said.

“They’re going to be right there to sell [users] the drugs to go into the center and use.”   

Rodrigo Caballero, a former NYPD detective who covered Washington Heights for more than a decade, said that despite the safe injection sites’ efforts to “do good,” they are causing “an eroding effect” by drawing drug activity and accompanying lawlessness in the area that is beyond the staff’s control. 

“[Users] are down on their luck, they have scarce resources, so they’ll engage in activity such as petty crimes, property crimes…to get the resources to pay for that fix,” he said.  

A group of young men act as lookouts for the van dealers while a stream of customers come through to score drugs.

J.C.RICE

The Sanitation Department said needle collection has continued to increase in the area, with its workers picking up at least 1,522 needles so far this year in Community Board 12, which includes Washington Heights — nearly double the 871 collected for the same period in 2022.

Narcotics arrests have more than doubled in the 33rd Precinct, which covers parts of Washington Heights below West 179th Street, up to 122 as of April 9, compared to 57 in 2022, according to NYPD data.

Despite locals’ criticisms of the current injection sites operating, Mayor Eric Adams has proposed opening three additional sites by 2025 in neighborhoods, such as the South Bronx. 

OnPoint did not respond to requests for comment. 

https://nypost.com/2023/04/15/dealers-sell-drugs-from-van-to-nearby-injection-site-clients/