The adversary will be demonstrating this Friday in favor of the implementation of the DACA and DAPA amnesties currently tied up in court. They will be demonstrating in front of a business owned by Robert Mercer, a man whom they mischaracterize as a proponent of false data about the negatives impact of these amnesties. His business is called Renaissance Technologies. Check out the details below the fold. 

What: NY ICE counter-demonstration against DAPA and DACA Executive amnesties

When: Tomorrow afternoon, from 11 AM to 1 PM

Where: The sidewalk in front of Renaissance Technologies at 800 3rd Avenue, between 49th and 50th St. 

Bring: Signs and cameras.

NY ICE marshaled its forces against DAPA-the President’s most recent illegal executive action-in downtown Manhattan recently. You can watch footage from the event which was uploaded to Vimeo, as well as read an account of the event by Joanna Marzullo, below the fold. 

My apologies for tackling this over a week after it occurred, but more pressing issues commanded my attention, obviously. That said, there’s much more great coverage of the May Day convocation of Marxist lunatics and open borders brigands from our friends at New York Ice, including more footage from the event uploaded to Vimeo, as well as some stunning photos of the rabble-and the steadfast NY ICE opposition-on Flickr.

You can also scroll through a fantastic photo-essay of the event posted to The Silent Majority No More, one of this site’s  most trusted and valuable allies. We should all be grateful for their tireless work on behalf of rational, non-Marxist New Yorkers and patriotic Americans everywhere.

This just in, courtesy of Joanna Marzullo, founder of NY ICE: 

As many of you know, Obama is planning on issuing an Executive amnesty later today.  This action is anticipated because the recent mid-term elections were not in his favor.  Obama is showing his hand, and showing he will exceed his rights as President when what he wants goes against the will of the American people he is supposed to represent.

It’s good to know that there’s at least one voice who hasn’t been neutered by the politically correct, intellectually bankrupt, leftist groupthink that animates so much of public discourse these days, even if it is the puppet of an insouciant Yugoslavian Mountain Hound. As Triumph points out, the vast majority of faux Disney characters importuning passersby for handouts in Times Square are illegal aliens, the remainder being, most likely, convicted sex offenders. 

It will be intriguing to see how pols eager to shelter criminal aliens who reside in this city will reconcile their open borders fanaticism with their eagerness to please tourists-in Councilman King’s case, with a very likely unconstitutional bill inhibiting their activities. 

New York Ice demonstrated once again this weekend why it is the premier anti-illegal immigration activist group  in the Northeast when they confronted the usual suspects demanding that we allow our nation to be invaded. You can find more videos from the counter-protest on Youtube, and some fantastic photo sets from the incomparable Pamela Hall on Flickr. Also, be sure to check out the post-action report, which you can find under recent items on NY ICE’s website.

Update: Full coverage of May Day on The Silent Majority No More.

New York ICE was out in the streets for May Day, confronting the open borders demagogues and Marxist rabble during their annual trek to Union Square. You can see a complete set of photographs from the day’s events  by viewing Nomad New York’s Flickr album. You can also read an account of the counter-demonstration from Joanna Marzullo herself on NY ICE’s website.

Another cause that Mr. Ostroy has been intimately involved with is promoting the work of young, aspiring female directors. To that end, he created the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, which awards grants that help these filmmakers bring their artistic vision to its intended audience. Today-starting at 5 PM-marks the beginning of a celebrity auction, which runs through December 13th, the proceeds of which will be dedicated to fulfilling the mission of this foundation.

I urge anyone who knows someone interested in film, the arts, or simply giving to a worthwhile cause, to take a look over the foundation’s eBay page, which includes some amazing gifts for donors. Including a VIP audience with acclaimed New York folk artist Dar Williams.

Although Adrienne Shelly is no longer with us, her spirit persists, both in the family and friends she loved, and in the beauty of her work, which continues to inspire young artists throughout the world of cinema.

To live in New York is to be surrounded by people suffering from various pathologies, many of whom you encounter on a daily basis if-like most of us-you use public transportation. Living here also means being surrounded by Marxists of varying hues, including Maoists, Trotskyites, and-as the photograph above illustrates, supporters of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Most of the time, international supporters of the only communist hereditary dictatorship fly under the radar. Outside of the faltering consortium of ethnic Koreans living in Japan-whose own stability has been imperiled for obvious reasons-there are not many people willing to support a regime which has killed enough of its subjects to rank comfortably between Pol Pot and Mengistu Haile Mariam in the annals of historical, third world despotism.

The event which occasioned these paeans to The Great Leader was the opening night of Red Dawn, a 1984 action-adventure thriller involving a Soviet invasion of the mainland United States that-much to the chagrin of the director of the original film-is being remade into a would-be blockbuster where the main antagonists are North Korean shock troops. Being a state-barely-where an economy  doesn’t exist and ICBMs are too poorly designed to reach the shores of the United States appears to have its advantages, at least from the perspective of a Hollywood film producer.

However, those going out of their way to avoid controversy usually have it thrust upon them, whether it be in the form of racially insensitive tweets, or a counter-protest staged by a bedraggled band of true believers led by an SDS spokesman who resembles a more unkempt version of Eric Stoltz, ca. The Butterfly Effect.

You thought SDS had disappeared with the departure of the last Americans from the U.S. embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam? Alas, it’s still extant, as is the Workers World, which peddles old ideas from the new left slightly repackaged-emphasis on slightly-for the Internet Age. The bilingual edition of the latter no doubt aimed to appeal to emigres from that vast swathe of Latin America which is infatuated with socialism, notwithstanding its rather obvious shortcomings.

Whether the proclivity of newcomers to favor government management of the economy will translate into increased support for The Great, Dear, Omniscient Leader is a matter for future generations to decide, but the spirited crowd of approximately half a dozen devoted communists seemed to be solidly in the corner of Kim Jong-Un and opposed to the shameless political dwarfs behind the cinematic reincarnation of this motion picture.

One of the scheduled speakers was the man wearing the jaunty keffiyeh seen above, who hails from the workers’ paradise that is post-Batista Cuba. Apparently, Raul Castro’s tropical paradise is, like the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, another victim of malicious, patently false Western propaganda. You might be asking yourself why, if that’s the case, he is in New York City right now instead of Havana. Oh, you vile, imperialist cur.

There was also an unofficial spokesperson from Occupy Wall Street whose purpose I wasn’t able to readily discern, although perhaps it was intended to add ballast to a movement that has seen better days. Most recently, when the Soviet Union existed as more than a whimsical advertising campaign from Hershey’s.

In fact, one of the points emphasized by our Alexi Lalas look-alike was that North Korea had a thriving economy during the untainted, benevolent reign of the Soviet Empire. Aside from the fact that this is wholly inaccurate, this assertion is 100 percent true. Still, you wonder why a regime that prides itself on its rigid autarky would rely upon its two largest neighbors in order to survive.

One of my hopes for the anti-Red Dawn/pro-deranged, overtly racist, vaguely Confucian Communist junta demonstration was that its small number of participants would be dwarfed by a slightly larger group of trolls, a la Communists for Kerry or Bureaucrash during its heyday.

Alas, no such hilarity ensued. I did get the chance to capture an amusing confrontation between comrade Maupin and a friend of mine who was also there to record this historic event. I don’t recall what was said verbatim, but I’m sure it involved a denunciation of capitalist lickspittles and/or running dogs of imperialism. For those of you who are interested in watching this tete-a-tete for yourselves, you can view it in its entirety on Youtube, which I’m certain would have been created by North Korean engineers if their nation hadn’t been bombarded by Western disinformation campaigns.

Sarcasm aside, one of the most disturbing aspects of this rally was a brief speech delivered by an envoy from the America-Democratic Republic of Korea Friendship Committee, who parroted the same lies you find published regularly by North Korea’s official news service.

Like the useful idiots who traveled back from Moscow with nothing but praise for Joseph Stalin-even as he was in the process of liquidating class enemies within the Soviet state-this loathsome creature returned from Pyongyang in order to stand upon a soapbox-quite literally-and laud the achievements of  a state which is synonymous with indifference to human life and the ruthless suppression of anyone who dares to exercise his natural rights.

It’s sickening to think that such a creature walks among us, but like ignorance, disease, and hatred, he is a pestilence which has yet to be eradicated in a world where knowledge is at the fingertips of most of humanity. A sad yet ineluctable truth that we’ll have confront as plunge ahead into an era just as turbulent as the one which occasioned a cinematic classic of the Cold War.

Update: Breitbart coverage here.  Also, a write-up from North Korea News. Watch Adrian Hong’s speech Escape from North Korea. A much longer speech by a survivor of a North Korean concentration camp can be viewed here. Hat Tip: Todd Seavey.

One of the chief distinctions between the anti-Israel rally and the slightly smaller, yet equally exuberant, pro-Israel counter-demonstration held in Times Square this weekend was the sentiments expressed by the participants. While the former vocalized their antipathy towards Israel and the United States and demanded ordinary Israelis be punished-through measures such as the BDS movement-and spent most of their time anathematizing Jews in the most historically inaccurate way possible, the latter concentrated mostly upon messages of solidarity with Israel.

There were, of course, expressions of hostility towards the jihadists who have instigated the current wave of bloodshed, and who continued to barrage terrified Israeli civilians with Iranian-designed missiles even as this was being written.

However, I saw no generalized contempt for the Palestinian people, or even the bellicose Islamist leaders of neighboring countries who exhorted those currently entrusted with power in the Gaza Strip to stand their ground.

The overwhelming sentiment was one of resilience, not hatred, and was expressed through chants like “Am Yisrael Chai,” the people of Israel live, and the singing of the Hatikvah, the national anthem of Israel.

As well as an attempt to convey, in concrete terms, the intensity of the terror ordinary civilians, especially those living in southern Israel, experience on a daily basis.

And to connect the coercive violence aimed at Israel to the jihadist attacks carried out against similar Western nations throughout the globe.

Specifically, the United States, which has endured jihadist attacks for the past several decades, including lethal assaults initiated by the men currently in charge of the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip.

Needless to say, there are legitimate critiques to be made of the methods Israel employed in responding to the rocket war waged by Hamas, as well as unaffiliated jihadist and Palestinian gangs. If nothing else, the fact that Hamas has been able to enchance its growing diplomatic standing in the Middle East-while preserving its vast, Iranian-supplied weapons arsenal-and was able to deter Israel from a ground invasion bodes ill for the security of Israeli citizens, to say nothing of those Palestinians who will be the unfortunate human shields in future military engagements.

Whether or not the result of this conflict constitutes a victory for Hamas, it is clear to all but the most deluded observers that it is a defeat for the adversaries of Hamas. Rather than Thing, a.k.a. Ben Grimm, Israel reacted to this assault in the dithering, indecisive manner of Shakespeare’s tragic hero, Hamlet. And as we all know, this strategy, if it can be called that, only leads to more bloodshed in the future.

Perhaps most disconcertingly, the inhumanity and barbarity of Islamic law was papered over by the persistently hostile mass media which reported on the Gaza conflict.

As these images from the public execution and dismemberment of suspected “collaborators,” which has drawn remarkably little attention from the fifth estate-with some notable exceptions-demonstrate.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the collective expression of support for Israel we’ve witnessed in New York City, whether from ordinary citizens or self-interested pols, is going to have much of an impact on public discourse. The sad truth is that the dominant media narrative, i.e. Palestinians as perpetual victim and Israel as eternal aggressor, is going to remain in place for the foreseeable future, and not even the most well crafted, factually accurate  publicity campaign is going to alter the status quo.

In fact, it could be argued that the appeal of the formulaic, anti-Israel meta narrative will only grow as those sympathetic to the Islamist cause gain an even surer foothold in the corporate world, within Congress and among influential media organs. The only way to counter this cresting tide is, to paraphrase the great Franz Kafka, take an axe to the frozen sea inside of us. Or in this case, the ice inside of those who willfully ignore the truth before them.

The truth, like life, is not pretty, but it must be told. Israel, like most of the West,  faces an existential struggle. Its preservation does not hinge upon a slick media relations campaign, or a superficially persuasive viral video, but upon disabusing spectators of the fallacies that underlie much of received wisdom about this conflict. And the only way to accomplish that goal is by telling the truth about jihadist dogma and how it informs the actions of  organizations like Hamas.