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After months of debate and hesitation, US President Joe Biden has finally given Ukraine the green light to conduct long-range strikes inside Russia using US-supplied weapons. According to reports, Biden has initially authorized strikes in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine has occupied hundreds of square kilometers of territory since summer 2024 but now faces a counteroffensive involving thousands of North Korean troops.

The relaxation of restrictions on airstrikes inside Russia using US-made ATACMS missiles represents a major shift in US policy. It comes just weeks before Biden is set to be replaced in the White House by Donald Trump, who is expected to push for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

Biden’s decision has provoked a mixture of anger and alarm in Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov led the chorus of criticism, accusing the United States of “deliberately pouring oil on the fire.” Russian Senator Vladimir Dzhabarov went even further, branding the move, “a very big step toward the beginning of World War III.” Meanwhile, Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta warned that “the madmen who are drawing NATO into a direct conflict with our country may soon be in great pain.”

Despite the histrionics in Moscow, this week’s US move to allow limited strikes on Russian territory is unlikely to transform the battlefield or spark a world war. The scope for potential strikes is far too narrow, while Russia has already had more than enough time to move the most interesting targets well out of range. The real significance of Biden’s green light lies in what it tells us about the diminishing impact of Vladimir Putin’s red lines.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Ever since the very first hours of the invasion, Putin has been using thinly veiled threats to intimidate the West into inaction. This approach has proved highly effective, with risk-averse Western leaders delaying arms deliveries to Ukraine and imposing absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons that have left many in Kyiv exasperated. However, as the war has progressed, Putin’s red lines have repeatedly been crossed without consequence, leading many to conclude that the Russian dictator has been bluffing all along.

Putin’s first big bluff came during his official address announcing the attack on Ukraine, when he warned Western leaders that any attempts to interfere would result in consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history.” Three days later, he hammered the point home by placing Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert. When a coalition of Western nations chose to ignore these warnings and began arming Ukraine, there was no nuclear escalation.

Six months later, Putin unveiled plans to annex four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces and vowed to use “all means at our disposal” to defend Russia’s conquests. “I’m not bluffing,” he declared. The Ukrainians were unimpressed by this nuclear saber-rattling and continued offensive operations in all four provinces. Within weeks they had liberated Kherson, the only Ukrainian regional capital captured by Russia during the invasion. This was a very personal humiliation for Putin, who had just pronounced the city “Russian forever.” Nevertheless, he did not reach for his nuclear button.

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Putin’s approach to wartime setbacks in Crimea has arguably been even more revealing. Ever since the seizure of the Ukrainian peninsula in spring 2014, the Kremlin has portrayed the conquest of Crimea as Putin’s crowning glory and the basis for his claim to a place in Russian history among the country’s greatest rulers. This led many to assume that he would defend Crimea with particular vigor. Instead, when Ukraine bombed Russia’s Crimean naval headquarters and sank or damaged one-third of Putin’s entire Black Sea Fleet, he quietly ordered his remaining warships to retreat to the safety of Russian ports.

The biggest blow to the credibility of Putin’s threats came in August 2024, when the Ukrainian army crossed the reddest of all red lines by invading Russia itself. Faced with the first foreign occupation of Russian soil since World War II, Putin issued no nuclear ultimatums and made no effort to rally the Russian people against the invader. On the contrary, he downplayed the entire Ukrainian offensive as a mere “provocation,” and ordered the Kremlin-controlled Russian media to minimize the significance of Ukraine’s historic advance.

Despite these very public embarrassments, Putin has clung to his intimidation tactics. Indeed, as the debate over permitting long-range strikes inside Russia gained momentum in September 2024, he actually sought to up the ante by announcing that any decision by the US or European countries to lift restrictions would mean they were “at war” with Russia. Weeks later, he unveiled proposed changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine that lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons and specifically addressed possible long-range missile attacks. In hindsight, this may have been too blatant, even by Russian standards.

Unfortunately for Putin, it appears that even the Biden White House has now concluded that his threats are empty. This is undoubtedly bad news for the Russian war effort. For almost three years, Western leaders have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Putin, and have let fear of escalation define their response to the largest European invasion since World War II. The West’s excessive caution has left the Ukrainian army perpetually short of weapons, and has made it possible for Russia to punch far above its weight in what would otherwise have been a complete military mismatch.

That may now be changing. Biden’s decision to authorize long-range strikes inside Russia will not alter the course of the war, but it does strike a powerful blow against the failed policies of escalation management that have done so much to undermine international support for Ukraine. Putin’s ability to intimidate the West has been his biggest success of the entire war, but it would seem that his bluff has been called once too often and his threats no longer resonate. If other countries now follow Biden and abandon the timidity of the past three years, they may find that Putin suddenly becomes much keener on the idea of a negotiated settlement.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert
Nov 14, 2024

Freezing the front lines in Ukraine would condemn millions to Russian occupation

By
Mercedes Sapuppo

Donald Trump’s election win is fueling speculation of a possible peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, but any attempt to freeze the front lines would condemn millions of Ukrainians to the horrors of Russian occupation, writes Mercedes Sapuppo.

Conflict
Disinformation

UkraineAlert
Nov 5, 2024

Putin’s 2022 ‘peace proposal’ was a blueprint for the destruction of Ukraine

By
Peter Dickinson

New details of talks between Russia and Ukraine during spring 2022 confirm that Putin’s alleged peace proposal was in fact a call for unconditional surrender and a blueprint for the destruction of the Ukrainian state, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict
Disinformation

UkraineAlert
Oct 31, 2024

Russia’s economy is overheating but Putin cannot change course

By
Alexander Mertens

Russia’s wartime economy is in danger of overheating due to a combination of record military spending, sanctions pressures, and runaway inflation, but Vladimir Putin dare not change course, writes Alexander Mertens.

Conflict
Defense Industry

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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The post Biden’s green light highlights the diminishing power of Putin’s red lines appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The resistance’s bar tab is on Google.

Priorities USA, a top Democratic super PAC with an affiliated dark money group, is convening a summit of left-wing digital activists on Wednesday afternoon to deliver a post-mortem on Vice President Kamala Harris’s election loss and strategize how to “resist the Republican agenda,” according to an invite obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Afterwards, Priorities USA invited attendees to attend an afterparty that will be “co-hosted by our friends at Google.”

“Recognizing that there is still a lot of data to be collected and analysis to be done, we hope that you will join our 2024 Digital Retrospective during which we will discuss what was done online this cycle and how we can prepare to resist the Republican agenda,” Priorities USA said in the email invitation. “This is just an initial conversation, we will be in touch in the coming weeks and months with information to join additional deeper dive conversations, briefings, and planning meetings.”

“For those in DC, we hope that you will also join us for a social hour co-hosted by our friends at Google,” the invite stated.

Priorities USA, whose major donors include billionaire financier George Soros and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, closed its invite with a quote from Harris’s concession speech: “This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves.”

A Google spokesman confirmed that the company will host a happy hour for Priorities USA on Wednesday, but will not participate in Priorities USA’s “digital retrospective” event preceding it.

“We did not participate in creating the content of the meeting,” the Google spokesman told the Free Beacon. “As they do for large ad buyers on both sides of the aisle, our political sales team will host some drinks after it.”

Google’s move to host a happy hour for Priorities USA, which spent $75 million on “digital mobilization” efforts to support Harris, comes as Donald Trump sets Big Tech in his crosshairs.

Trump has long been a fierce critic of Google, alleging that the company has “rigged” its search engine to inundate users with negative stories about him. Though Trump signaled on the campaign trail he wasn’t willing to break up Google as a monopoly so long as it serves as a bulwark against China, the president-elect said he would do “something” about its search engine to “make sure it’s more fair.”

“I think it’s a whole rigged deal. I think Google is rigged just like our government is rigged all over the place,” Trump said on the campaign trail.

Big Tech is also on edge over Trump’s nomination of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) to serve as attorney general. During his four terms in the House, Gaetz established himself as one of the most outspoken Republican supporters of antitrust legislation targeting Big Tech, going so far as to praise President Joe Biden’s Justice Department during a 2023 hearing for its antitrust legal efforts against Google.

“I think you’re doing a good job, and that is a painful admission for me to have to make about anyone who works at the Department of Justice,” Gaetz told Biden’s Justice Department antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter, adding that he was “perhaps just as concerned about the monopoly power of Google” and urged him to “continue to pursue those cases,” the Washington Post reported.

The post Google Hosts Party for Democratic Operatives Plotting To ‘Resist the Republican Agenda’ appeared first on .

MSNBC host Jen Psaki on Sunday attacked Democrats who argue that the party’s focus on transgender issues helped sink Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential bid, accusing them of “falling prey to right-wing propaganda.”

“This is a good time for Democrats to self-reflect about what went wrong and what to do better moving forward,” the former White House press secretary said on her show. “But during that process, it’s important not to yield to manufactured panic and to align with the actual facts before making sweeping claims.”

Psaki pointed to Rep. Seth Moulton (D., Mass.), who told the New York Times he has “two little girls” and doesn’t “want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.” He later added on MSNBC that the Democratic Party is “out of touch.” Moulton has since faced a primary threat and left-wing protesters outside his district office.

“Echoing and adopting the panic from the other side is not leading,” Psaki said. “It’s not meeting people where they are. It’s simply falling prey to right-wing propaganda without checking the facts first.”

Psaki said the GOP is exaggerating the prevalence of trans issues, arguing that the transgender population is minuscule and that there are few trans athletes affecting women’s sports. She accused Republicans of using ads during the election “to amplify their bad faith attacks to the point that people do have concerns, as misguided and misinformed as those concerned may be.”

But Psaki ignored trans policies that Democrats have spearheaded.

The Biden-Harris administration, for example, tried changing language to Title IX, the federal ban on sex discrimination, by replacing sex with gender identity. Lawsuits alleging that the move would allow males in female spaces like locker rooms and bathrooms have stalled the proposal, which will likely be rolled back under President-elect Donald Trump. 

As a presidential candidate in 2020, Harris supported allowing illegal immigrants and prisoners to use taxpayer dollars for sex-change surgeries. Psaki criticized Trump campaign ads that called out the vice president’s support.

“If that sounds like a particularly obscure issue, it is because it applies to a tiny group of people,” Psaki said.

Congressional Democrats have similarly pushed transgender issues in recent years, such as through the Equality Act, which would have made gender identity a protected class. They also championed a Transgender Bill of Rights, which would allow student-athletes to compete on teams aligning with their gender identity. Both efforts have failed several times.

The post Psaki to Dems: Stand By Your Trans appeared first on .

The Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme Court slapped down Democratic senator Bob Casey’s attempts to count invalid mail-in ballots, the latest blow to the three-term incumbent’s efforts to overturn his loss to Republican Dave McCormick.

The court upheld its ruling earlier this month that mail-in and absentee ballots that lack the required signatures and accurate dates cannot be counted. “It is critical to the rule of law that individual counties and municipalities and their elected and appointed officials, like any other parties, obey orders of this Court,” Justice David Wecht, a Democrat, wrote in a concurring opinion.

At issue were efforts by Casey’s allies in several Pennsylvania counties to openly defy the earlier Supreme Court ruling in hopes of counting invalid mail-in ballots. The boldest act of defiance came from Bucks County commissioners Diane Ellis-Marseglia and Bob Harvie, longtime allies of Casey who donated $2,600 to his campaign this year. “The law needs to be changed,” Harvie said at a commission meeting last week. And Marseglia announced she would openly defy the earlier Supreme Court ruling because “precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country.”

“People violate laws anytime they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention,” Marseglia said.

Casey has refused to concede the race, which he trailed by around 31,000 votes when the Associated Press called it in favor of McCormick. The Washington Post editorial board urged Casey to drop out of the race and waive his right to a recount, which is triggered when the vote margin is within a half of a percentage point. The recount, which will last until Nov. 26, will cost taxpayers at least $1 million.

“Today’s ruling is a massive setback to Senator Casey’s attempt to count illegal ballots,” McCormick campaign spokeswoman Elizabeth Gregory said after the ruling. “Bucks County and others blatantly violated the law in an effort to help Senator Casey. Senator-elect McCormick is very pleased with this ruling and looks forward to taking the Oath of Office in a few short weeks.”

The court, which is made up of five Democrats and two Republicans, issued the ruling hours after Casey defended his refusal to concede the race on the grounds that he wants to see all “legal” votes counted in the race. But Casey also suggested that he supports the actions of his allies in Bucks County and that the Supreme Court ruling had the effect of “disenfranchising thousands of voters.”

“This close race has also put a spotlight on undated mail ballots, as my opponent and his allies have filed an appeal with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to disqualify mail ballots where a voter has accidentally written the date wrong or didn’t write a date at all,” Casey wrote in a PennLive op-ed. “At its core, this is a debate about the constitutionality of disenfranchising thousands of voters due to a requirement that has no bearing on a voters’ eligibility and has no impact in deterring fraud.”

Casey’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the Supreme Court decision.

The post Dem-Controlled PA Supreme Court Slaps Down Bob Casey’s Efforts To Count Invalid Mail-In Ballots: ‘Critical to the Rule of Law’ appeared first on .

MSNBC cohosts (and passionate lovers) Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski went to Mar-a-Lago to meet with President-elect Donald Trump last week, the duo announced Monday on Morning Joe. It was their first in-person conversation with Trump in seven years. Many were shocked by the announcement, given that Scarborough and Brzezinski have repeatedly denounced Trump as a “racist” and a “fascist.” As recently as October of this year, Scarborough expressed disdain for the “pathetic people that are trying to cozy up to Donald Trump.” Now he’s one of them.

“It’s gonna come as no surprise to anybody who watches this show, has watched it over the past year or over the past decade, that we didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues, and we told him so,” Scarborough said Monday. The MSNBC personality has previously accused Trump of waging “an attempted fascist overthrow of American democracy,” and assailed all of Trump’s supporters for “knowingly voting for a fascist.” Brzezinski, who recently condemned Trump for holding a “hate” rally in Madison Square Garden, described the president-elect as “cheerful” and “interested in finding common ground with Democrats.” The goal of the meeting, she explained, was to “restart communications.” Trump confirmed the meeting in an interview with Fox News and thanked the MSNBC power couple for congratulating him on a “great and flawless campaign, one for the history books.”

The pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago could also be seen as a desperate attempt to rehabilitate MSNBC’s reputation as a cesspool of partisan invective and racial grievance. The radical left-wing network’s ratings plunged as much as 50 percent in the days following Trump’s election. Its parent company, Comcast, is mulling whether to cut ties with MSNBC and other declining TV assets by spinning them off into a separate entity.

Alas, the network might be beyond saving at this point. MSNBC viewers were shocked to learn the Morning Joe hosts had met with Trump. Former Hillary Clinton strategist Adam Parkhomenko called it a “pathetic betrayal.” Liberal social media activist @JoJoFromJerz was seething with rage. “F—k Joe & Mika,” she wrote. “F—k Morning Joe. And f—k MSNBC if they keep them on the f—ing air.”

Scarborough is no stranger to controversy. He received a two-day suspension from MSNBC in 2010 for failing to disclose political donations to former congressman Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.), who was then a candidate for the Florida State Legislature and was recently announced as Trump’s nominee for attorney general. Making the trip to Mar-a-Lago was presumably a humiliating affair for Joe and Mika, who enjoyed a close relationship with Trump during the 2016 Republican primary, when all mainstream networks were eager to juice their ratings by letting Trump call into their shows. That relationship quickly turned sour after Trump won the primary and the general election against Hillary Clinton. In a post complaining about the unfair coverage on MSNBC, Trump blasted “Psycho Joe” and “low I.Q. Crazy Mika,” while claiming to have seen Brzezinski “bleeding badly from a facelift.”

Morning Woe: Scarborough, Brzezinski Grovel to ‘Fascist’ Trump as MSNBC’s Fate Hangs in the Balance, Viewers Slam ‘Pathetic Betrayal’

The post WATCH: Matt Gaetz Donor Makes Pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago To Kiss the Ring appeared first on .

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he is naming former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy as his nominee to be transportation secretary, as he continues to roll out picks for his Cabinet.

Duffy is a former reality TV star who was one of Trump’s most visible defenders on cable news — a prime concern for the media-focused president-elect. Duffy served in the House for nearly nine years, was a member of the Financial Services Committee and was chairman of the subcommittee on insurance and housing. He left Congress in 2019, and is now co-host of a show on Fox Business, the “Bottom Line.”

In his announcement Monday, Trump noted that Duffy is married to a Fox News host, calling him “the husband of a wonderful woman, Rachel Campos-Duffy, a STAR on Fox News.”

Trump said Duffy would use his experience and relationships built over the years in Congress “to maintain and rebuild our Nation’s Infrastructure, and fulfill our Mission of ushering in The Golden Age of Travel, focusing on Safety, Efficiency, and Innovation. Importantly, he will greatly elevate the Travel Experience for all Americans!”

Duffy in 2022 ruled out a run for Wisconsin governor, despite pleas from Trump to make a bid, saying he needed time to care for the needs of his family of nine children, posting on social media that his youngest child had a heart condition.

He is a former lumberjack athlete and frequent contributor to Fox News. He was featured on MTV’s “The Real World: Boston” in 1997. He met his future wife on the set of MTV’s “Road Rules: All Stars” in 1998.

He was a special prosecutor and Ashland County district attorney who won election to Congress as part of a tea party wave in 2010. He served until resigning in 2019.

Mayor Eric Adams elevated NYC’s drought watch to a warning Monday amid the city’s longest rainless streak in recorded history.

Per the warning, the mayor ordered city agencies to implement various drought protocols to conserve water. Among the measures, city agencies will limit how frequently they wash their vehicles. NYC Parks will limit water use for fountains and golf courses and reduce water usage at artificial ponds and lakes unless they are habitats for fish or other wildlife.

NYC Public Schools will start a water conservation awareness program for students, and city agencies will conduct leak surveys and repair activities where necessary.

The FDNY and NYPD will also help close illegally opened hydrants.

The mayor has also paused the Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Delaware Aqueduct Repair Project, an ongoing effort to fix the 86-mile pipeline that delivers half of Big Apple’s water supply from the Catskills. Pausing the project will restart the flow of water from four additional reservoirs, city officials said.

“As our city and watershed continues to experience significant precipitation shortages, today, I’m upgrading our drought watch to a drought warning, pausing our Delaware Aqueduct repair project, and ordering our agencies to immediately implement water saving measures,” Adams said. “Our city vehicles may look a bit dirtier, and our subways may look a bit dustier, but it’s what we have to do to delay or stave off a more serious drought emergency.”

A drought warning is the second of three water conservation declarations from the city. If dry conditions persist, the city may declare a drought emergency, which would involve escalating requirements on government agencies and requiring New Yorkers to reduce water usage, officials said. 

The city provided additional steps New Yorkers can take to help preserve water:

• Report open fire hydrants and street leaks to 311.  
• Don’t flush the toilet unnecessarily. 
• Take shorter showers, which the city says can save five to seven gallons a minute. When taking a bath, fill the tub only halfway and save 10 to 15 gallons.  
• Don’t run the tap while shaving, washing hands, or brushing teeth. Faucets use two to three gallons per minute.   
• Fix leaks. A leaky faucet that drips at the rate of one drip per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons per year, according to the EPA.  
• Run the dishwasher and washing machine only when full. Use short cycles if available. Turn off the water while washing dishes.  
• Install water-saving fixtures, including low-flow toilets and showerheads, as well as faucet aerators.  
• Sweep driveways and sidewalks clean rather than washing them down with a hose.  

More information is available on the DEP’s website at nyc.gov/dep.

Sources have confirmed President-elect Donald J. Trump will be visiting Brownsville Tuesday to watch the sixth SpaceX launch.

The team of U.S. Representative for District 34 Vicente Gonzalez confirmed to NewsNation local affiliate KVEO that Trump will be in attendance Tuesday as space enthusiasts, locals and out of towners watch SpaceX attempt to launch the Starship rocket.

Two sources also confirmed his attendance to NewsNation’s Libbey Dean.

Local flight restrictions read: “The Federal Aviation Administration has issued temporary flight restrictions over Brownsville and Boca Chica, Texas area for a VIP visit that coincides with the SpaceX launch window for a test of its massive Starship rocket from its launch facility on the Gulf of Mexico. The flight restrictions put in place over Trump’s home in Palm Beach, Florida when he is there will be lifted briefly while the Texas security measures are in place.”

Trump won the Rio Grande Valley, where the launch will take place.

Leading up to the Nov. 5 election, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk showed support for Trump while on the campaign trail. He’s since been tapped to to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) along Vivek Ramaswamy.

This is SpaceX’s sixth attempt at launching Starship, and this time around, it aims to expand the envelope on Starship and booster capabilities.

“Objectives include the booster once again returning to the launch site for catch, reigniting a ship Raptor engine while in space, and testing a suite of heatshield experiments and maneuvering changes for ship reentry and descent over the Indian Ocean,” SpaceX stated.

According to SpaceX.com, Starship is expected to launch on Nov. 19 with a 30-minute launch window beginning at 4 p.m.

(NewsNation) — Sean “Diddy” Combs’ attorneys have accused prosecutors of engaging in “outrageous government conduct” alleging that they seized notes and other “privileged attorney-client” material from the music mogul’s jail cell and are using it to keep him locked up.

In a letter requesting an immediate hearing, his lawyers alleged Monday that prosecutors gathered “privileged material, including the defendant’s own written notes” during a raid on Combs’ cell at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

They said those materials were cited in papers the government filed in Manhattan federal court on Friday in a bid to keep the music mogul locked up before his May 5 trial.

“This search and seizure are in violation of Mr. Combs’ Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights,”  the lawyers told Judge Arun Subramanian.

“The targeted seizure of a pre-trial detainee’s work product and privileged materials – created in preparation for trial – is outrageous government conduct amounting to a substantive due process violation,” they added.

They demanded prosecutors answer who authorized the search of Combs’ cell, where personal effects and paperwork were seized.

Subramanian gave prosecutors until 5 p.m. ET Monday to respond to Comb’s lawyers and set a hearing on the matter for Tuesday afternoon. 

Combs has been held in pre-trial detention while awaiting his trial since September.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he “led a racketeering conspiracy that engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice, among other crimes. “

Combs is currently seeking to be placed on house arrest through a $50 million bail package.

On Friday, prosecutors said Combs has been trying to dodge scrutiny of his jailhouse communications while orchestrating social media campaigns aimed at tainting the jury pool and trying to publicly leak materials he views are helpful to his case. They said he also has contacted witnesses through third parties.

Combs allegedly speaks to women through ‘peepholes’ in jail

Combs has been moved to a low-security dorm of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where he can peep down into the women’s unit, sources tell NewsNation.

Gene Borrello, a former mob enforcer who spent time in the unit, joined “Banfield” Monday night to explain.

“You can lay down, and the females are right below you,” Borrello said on “Banfield.” “You can yell at them, and they yell back. You can kind of see them. You have to watch out for the guards, obviously.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Luna Park’s Frost Fest is set to return to Coney Island, transforming the iconic amusement park into a festive winter wonderland. The second annual celebration kicks off on Nov. 23, promising an array of holiday-themed activities for visitors of all ages.

The holiday event will feature traditional seasonal attractions, including photos with Santa Claus and an artisan holiday marker — all under the glow of a 35-foot holiday tree.

“What better place than Luna Park to create those everlasting holiday memories? By establishing a new Coney Island tradition, we have created an enchanting backdrop that enhances the charm of our iconic amusement attractions,” said Alessandro Zamperla, president and CEO of Central Amusement International Inc., which operates Luna Park.

New this year is the “Candy Cane Chute,” a giant slide sure to deliver a a rush of winter excitement. Santa’s Wonderland will also be open, offering families the chance to meet the holly jolly man of the season.

Luna Park, New York City’s iconic amusement destination, will keep the Coney Island Cyclone open throughout the winter, adding an element of nostalgia and excitement to its seasonal festivities.

Throughout the Frost Fest season, which runs on select dates until Jan. 1, 2025, guests can explore over 20 amusement park attractions, all adorned with festive decorations.

Festival-goers can round out their visit with seasonal delights from the holiday market, featuring gourmet treats and hot drinks to help keep them cozy.

The winter festivities will conclude with the Polar Bear Club Plunge on Jan. 1, followed by an after-party, marking a spirited end to the holiday season.

Admission to Frost Fest is free, with ride prices starting at $4. Full details are available on Luna Park’s website.