Some background for those unfamiliar with the intricate geography of New York City and the surrounding metro area: The city’s divided into five “boroughs” which were individual counties prior to 1875 when the southern half of Westchester County was ceded as the Bronx. Then in 1898 the city annexed Staten Island – aka Richmond County – and a third of Long Island, including the city of Brooklyn – conterminous with Kings County – and the western half of then-Queens County.
The eastern half of Queens was renamed Nassau County, a jurisdiction currently led by hardcore MAGA douchebag Bruce Blakeman, who early last week told Fox News he’s responding to 34 year-old socialist Democrat Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York City’s mayoral election by “installing technology along the border of New York City that will read license plates, that will have facial recognition, that will have video cameras,” because Mamdani will unleash a wave of crime that will spill over the border. “We’re doing everything necessary to make sure that Nassau County is safe.”
Fun fact: Somewhere between 50 and 100 private properties, including dozens of homes, are actually bisected by the haphazardly drawn border that Blakeman seeks to fortify with facial recognition cameras. “Right now, I see his values as anti-American. So, I have a lot of issues with Mamdani. We built the greatest economic city in the world, with the financial capital of the world being in New York City. His policies will probably destroy that,” Blakeman said, adding that those who feel displaced by the socialist Muslim mayor-elect are “welcome to come to Nassau County.”
“It’s safe and affordable,” Blakeman added and lol. Safe? Yes. Safe relative to Queens? Yeah, but not by light years at 163 violent crime incidents per 100,000 in Nassau in 2023 to 439 in Queens. Factor in traffic fatalities per 100,000: 3.5 in Queens, 4.8 in Nassau (also 2023) and it’s closer to a wash on safety. Affordable? Get fucked Bruce. Property taxes are 78 percent higher per sq ft in Nassau.