New York’s governor has been in the news lately, and none of it has been for good reasons.
Emboldened by eking out her election victory, the Empire State’s chief executive is hell-bent on snuffing out more and more freedoms.
And the Democrat’s latest proposal makes you wonder if she thinks she was crowned queen.
After angering suburban and largely conservative residents just in the last week with her plans to build high-density housing projects over locals’ wishes, Governor Kathy Hochul (D) is back at it.
But this time she may have barked up the wrong tree.
The black community members are strongly criticizing her for her plans to ban flavored tobacco products like menthol cigarettes.
The planned ban comes even as access to flavored marijuana is allowed.
Corey Pegues, a retired black New York Police Department executive, is urging local legislators to oppose Hochul’s latest manifestation of her inner Karen.
“It doesn’t make sense!”
Pegues says, “You’re telling me that my 21-year-old son can buy all the cannabis he wants, but my grandmother who’s been smoking for 65 years can’t get a cigarette? It doesn’t make sense!”
According to Pegues, the proposal was included in Hochul’s State of the State plan.
He claims it will disproportionately affect black voters.
According to the CDC, eighty-five percent of black smokers use menthol cigarettes, compared with just 30 percent of white smokers and activists say that if Hochul gets her way, she will lose support from the black community.
Pegues continued, “Hochul didn’t run on this. She would have been defeated. Black people wouldn’t have voted for her. Whoever passes this ban is going to be the boogeyman. Think about this. You are going to be the person that took Newport cigarettes from black people. You would never get reelected again, I promise you.”
His assertions may be correct, as just a six percentage point swing during the November elections would have crowned Republican Lee Zeldin as the victor.
Wayne Harris, chairman of the board of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, says that flavored cigarettes are no more addictive than their natural counterparts and that the leftist obsession with targeting cigarette smokers is curious given their seeming support for marijuana use.
Jiles Ship, a former president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, says, “They’ll go to other states and get them. They’ll bring them back to New York and then try to sell them on the black market, which is going to create another crime problem in the communities because now people will be having turf wars, and a multitude of illicit activities will transpire.”
It’s just not “equitable”
Even fellow Democrats have questioned the wisdom of Governor Hochul’s latest attempt to make New Yorkers do whatever she wants them to do at any given moment without question.
Assemblyman Nader Sayegh (D-Yonkers) says, “It’s not equitable to say: ‘Stop smoking hookah but you can go smoke pot.”
But that’s the thing about Hochul and those of similar mind.
It’s not really about equity or any of the latest buzzwords favored by leftists.
What it all comes down to is pure power and a belief from New York elites that they know better and can better make decisions for everyday New Yorkers.
Unless or until enough Empire State residents wake up to this fact, they can expect their freedoms to be infringed even more.
Stay tuned to Blue State Blues for any updates to this ongoing story.
