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New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (R-19) is looking into suing the City Council in the wake of possible censure charges after it determined that some of Paladino’s tweets are Islamophobic. Paladino, however, contends that she has the First Amendment right to say whatever she wants in a tweet. The council is split over whether that is the case, but that didn’t prevent the Ethics Committee from suggesting the move against the outspoken Queens councilwoman. Former City Councilman Joe Borelli faced some of the same threats of censure that Paladino is currently experiencing because he used the term “illegal aliens”. He appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program to dissect Paladino’s case, which, he contends, all boils down to freedom of speech.
Borelli told host Larry Mendte that City Council Speaker Julie Menin was wrong to interject herself into this kerfuffle: “I think the Speaker is making a mistake here… It’s the Speaker’s right to call her a jerk, call her names, say how wrong she is, call her a liar, call her whatever she wants. I just don’t believe the council should be policing speech. Operationally, the issue now is that, once you police speech once, now you’re the arbiter of what’s acceptable and what’s not. So, I just see a situation where the ‘what about-ism’ is going to take over the council. Now, anytime someone days something or tweets something controversial, they’re all going to go to the principal’s office and say, you know, why aren’t you punishing this one?’.”
Borelli also commented on a slightly less volatile situation, the war on Iran; in this instance, however, he sees nothing but positive outcomes: “This is a realignment that only happens under Donald Trump and only happens to the benefit of America for the next generation… Look, this is geo-political strategy. This is generational, not short term. This is a great realignment for the United States.”
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