New York Electeds' "Affordability" Agendas Put Agendas First
Plans for 2026 proffered by Kathy Hochul and Zohran Mamdani ignore New Yorkers with unpaid government jobs.
The Scoop New York is a website and newsletter covering the movement for a true no-kill New York State, from BUF to BK. NYC ACC KILLS, published by TSNY, enumerates and memorializes adoptable cats and dogs who were exterminated by Animal Care Centers of New York City.
Headlines from Buffalo to Brooklyn
It’s January 17, 2026. This is The Weekly Poop.
This week — this month, this year, this decade, this century, this millennium — the state of New York companion animal welfare is dire.
If it’s January in New York, where like it or lump it every year is an election year, pols from Lake Erie to Long Island Sound are taking oaths and talking shit, of the horse and bull variety.
At the top of the 2026 ticket: Governor Kathy Hochul, who within the span of 10 years managed to fail upward from lowly county clerk known for gleefully plotting to ambush and deport immigrants, ICE-style, all the way to headlining The Egg, with a U.S. House stint in between for good measure. This despite possessing the political chops of a real-life Chauncey Gardiner and no discernible closely-held beliefs or values beyond “Go Bills!”.
Scared shitless by the 60-40 Electoral College ruling that decided Trump v. Harris, Hochul was hawking affordability months before Andrew “Mandami” Cuomo had his creepy racist ass handed to him by now-NYC mayor née-NYS Assembly member Zohran Mamdani. And though she was characteristically late to catch on, after the requisite weathervaning period the governor concluded that, yes, the million vote-getting international phenom connected with voters in a manner she could safely exploit.
And there they are, clasping hands beneath that headline. Felix and Oscar. Mozart and Salieri. Mixed pickle and mayonnaise.
We won’t get into the specifics of their respective “affordability” plans here. Coverage elsewhere is plentiful, and Mamdani’s stated goals are well-known, seeing as they got him that million votes.
Hochul says she’s on board with universal child care, but her aversion to properly taxing wealthy folk like herself is a hard cap that keeps her from going much further. Which is how you end up with Cuomo-esque bait-and-switch backfill like Hochul’s plot to reduce car insurance premiums by screwing over crash victims — at the behest of fucking Uber, naturally.
Kathy Hochul identifies with privilege. She would much rather hang in the Pegulas’ skybox than raise the Pegulas’ taxes to benefit the New Yorkers she forced to subsidize that skybox. Handouts for me and mine; hand it over for thee and thine. It’s no more complicated than that.
Kathy Hochul identifies with privilege. She would much rather hang in the Pegulas’ skybox than raise the Pegulas’ taxes to benefit the New Yorkers she forced to subsidize that skybox. It’s no more complicated than that.
Suffice to say the affordability agendas presented by Hochul and Mamdani do not acknowledge or include countless New Yorkers handing it over hand over fist, every day, to care for New York’s homeless cats and dogs. Both the governor and the mayor are, like their predecessors, blind to that struggle. This is a choice.
Ditto the New York Legislature and New York City Council, which are meant to serve as a check on the executives but do so only inasmuch as electeds’ mutual interests allow — said mutual interest in this case being preservation of The Big Lie, which allows cynical electeds to point to fictitious live release rates as evidence of their status as Friends Of The Animals.
That’s how you get a City Council speaker who talks “affordability” while, say, reappointing indifferent, ineffectual seat-warmers like chief council FOTA Lynn “AcC dOEs ThE beST It cAn” Schulman to the council’s ACC oversight post, which also happened this week.
Leftist, centrist or conservative; Democrat or Republican; socialist or capitalist; mixed pickle or mayo: Flipping the bird at New Yorkers with unaffordable unpaid government jobs is The One Thing They Agree On.
Here’s the latest New York companion animal news:
You can love companion animals or you can love watching their adoptive families terrorized by the government, but not both.
Our buddy Patrick “40K” Nolan is skedded to smirk and condescend and bully his way through another pointless ACC board meeting next Wednesday, January 21, in the purposely too-small meeting room at the purposely transit-remote FOTA St. Paul A. Vallone Puppy-Kitten Carcass Factory in Queens — unless TSNY noting the meeting leads DOH to cancel it. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Check here, here and here for more on Governor Hochul’s state of the state production and fake-it-to-make-it plans ahead of the primary (where she has opposition) and the general election.
City & State welcomed incoming New York City Council members with a big access-o-press smooch. Because we’re all friends here, dontcha know.
Meet Helen Arteaga Landaverde, Mamdani’s deputy mayor assigned to supervise his still-unnamed health commissioner.
“I plan to be an extremely activist comptroller, including on the budget,” said Mark Levine, newly-inaugurated NYC comptroller who as City Council health chair did zilch to challenge Bill de Blasio’s $1.4B ACC contract boondoggle.
What fresh horrors await helpless cats in the custody of NYC ACC and its gee-whiz AI cat pain detector?
Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple somehow did NOT issue a cruelty charge against an Albany woman accused of dumping a dog outside Mohawk Hudson Humane Society, where the dog froze to death.
Finally, New York City in
182619262026, everyone.
Food recalls
FDA announced no pet food recalls this week.
Check here for more info on FDA-announced recalls, and here for details on prior FDA advisories and outbreaks.