Democrats seem to think that hating Donald Trump is more important than anything — even honoring a female cop who was killed protecting New York City’s citizens.
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, a Democrat and close political ally of the Clinton family, skipped out on a ceremony honoring a murdered NYC police officer last week.
Why was he so busy? He was attending an anti-Trump protest in Germany — and the city’s bureaucrats backed him up the whole way, saying De Blasio’s taxpayer-funded European trip was representing the city’s best interests
Everyone wondered why the mayor wasn’t in attendance as 524 new police officers were being sworn in at the Police Academy last Thursday. This event came just one day after a black female officer, Miosotis Familia, was assassinated, shot through the back of the head. She left behind three children, including 12-year-old twins.
The ceremony would have paid her tribute. De Blasio — who has been a major defender of Black Lives Matters and their violent, anti-cop hate speech — said he couldn’t make it due to a “scheduling conflict.”
But it turned out he was packing up to speak at a rally trashing President Donald Trump in Hamburg, Germany. Trump was there representing the United States as part of the G-20 summit.
The mayor didn’t even give the police a heads-up before scurrying out of town. He kept his trip to Berlin under wraps until just 90 minutes before he taxied off the runway at Newark Airport, where he was already safely hiding from the press.
De Blasio gave the keynote speech at the anti-Trump rally in Germany on Saturday. “The mayor will be sharing New York and American values with an international audience that we worry only sees and hears from our president,” his spokesman, Eric Phillips said.
Somehow, the hate-Trump speech was supposed to promote the “city’s needs and strengths.”
De Blasio’s actions didn’t just hurt police in the U.S.; they harmed police officers abroad, too. An estimated 50,000 protesters spent the week setting fire to cars, looting stores, and throwing Molotov cocktails at law enforcement.
The mayor’s new friends left 476 police injured — and De Blasio was there, cheering them on.
“This is what democracy looks like,” De Blasio said at his speech.
Somehow, the mayor of a great American city thought this was a good use of taxpayer dollars… and New York City’s Democrat-run government agreed! The Conflict of Interest board ruled that “the trip is for a city purpose and therefore could properly be paid for with city funds.”
The mayor’s flight and hotel was paid for by organizers with the group Hamburg Zeigt Haltung (“Hamburg Shows Attitude”), but he took eight bodyguards overseas to Germany to protect him from the violent left-wing crowds he was inciting. They were on the clock, and were billing for 18-hour days.
Just because the mayor wouldn’t honor police doesn’t mean he doesn’t demand that they protect and serve him.
When the head of the police union criticized his trip, the mayor said any criticism of him was “an attempt to politicize” Familiar’s murder — like his opponents were the ones ignoring the fallen officer.
His actions outraged New Yorkers of both parties. “No doubt in my mind, DEB is biggest a–hole to occupy City Hall,” Sal Albanese, who is running against De Blasio in the Democratic primary, tweeted.
Bo Dietl, who is also running for mayor as a Republican, blasted De Blasio. “He’d rather protest and eat bratwurst with his lefty friends in Europe,” Dietl said. “The real victims of this political posturing are the people of New York.”
De Blasio defended himself, saying, “I feel so deeply for Officer Familia’s family.”
He told the media that his opinions are so important, he just couldn’t keep them to himself. Besides, someone has to smear President Trump.
“I think it was incumbent on me as the leader of the biggest city in the country,” he told WNYC radio.
De Blasio has been trying to make a name for himself among radical liberals and leftists for awhile. He tried to organize events in Iowa to push the Democratic Party further left, but he had to cancel when no candidates showed up. Then he hitched his star to Bernie Sanders.
Now, he’s going even further outside the five boroughs to try to find supporters.
Evidently, he thinks furthering his political career — and destroying Trump — is more important than staying at home, doing his job, and saluting the thin blue line that puts its life on the line for him every single day.
De Blasio’s far-left views aren’t surprising. He supported the Communist Sandinistas who overthrew the pro-American government in Nicaragua in the 1980s. After he married his wife, a former lesbian, they honeymooned in Fidel Castro’s Cuba.
More recently, he said of all “patriots,” there is “none greater than Reverend (Al) Sharpton.”
But New Yorkers will have the last word – they always do. De Blasio is up for re-election this fall.
“The mayor should be embarrassed by the way he has treated the men and women of our police department,” said his likely Republican challenger, Nicole Malliotakis.
— The Horn editorial team