The great savior of progressivism, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, hates breasts.  Well, maybe not all breasts, but at least the ones you can see at Times Square. So he’s on a quest to rid this tourist trap of titties.

On Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the formation of a multiagency force “to curb topless individuals” and their costumed counterparts in Times Square.

It is led by Police Commissioner William Bratton and the City Planning Commission chairman, Carl Weisbrod, and includes the Police Department; the Manhattan district attorney’s office; the Transportation Department; the Law Department; the Department of Consumer Affairs; the Department of City Planning; the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice; NYC & Company; and the deputy mayor for housing and economic development, Alicia Glen.

As the New York Times rightly notes, the “size and firepower of this task force are more appropriate for an Ebola outbreak.”  All because the great liberal hope can’t bear the bare.  Even though it’s perfectly lawful for a woman to go shirtless, just like a man, because their mammaries are no more criminal than anyone else’s.  Sucks, right?  (Okay, I went over the line on that one. Sorry.)

To remedy this Disney disaster, the mayor and his braintrust have come up with some ideas to “solve” the problem.

On Thursday, Mr. de Blasio suggested one solution: eliminating some of Times Square’s pedestrian plazas, apparently on the theory that if you can get tourists to go away, you reduce the topless-woman threat. Other officials suggest creating a pen for the women and costumed characters — sort of a panhandling zoo — or turning this great bustling commercial zone into, of all things, a park.

The zoo idea would create some interesting optics, for sure.  And, as the mayor is quick to point out, this isn’t just about returning Times Square to an eyesore.

Most important, it would say that panhandlers who become aggressive and obstructive can be dealt with. Mr. Bratton’s officers are trained to handle terrorists and epidemics and armed criminals. They are more than capable of dealing with half-naked panhandlers who get pushy.

There are two entirely separate issues at play here.  One issue is women with no shirts on, and the other is aggressive panhandlers impairing and impeding people’s ability to go about their day. Touch someone, block someone’s path, threaten someone with harm (not their feelz, but an actual threat of violence) and you get pinched by the anti-terrorists SWAT guys hanging around Times Square to ogle maintain surveillance on potential criminals.

But that applies to all people who would violate the law. This isn’t really about aggressive panhandling, or they would have shut all of Manhattan down decades ago.  This is about women and their breasts.

And what does that protector of women’s feelz have to say about it?

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday joined the call for a crackdown on the nearly naked women in body paint who pose for photos in Times Square.

“I believe this activity is illegal,” Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said. “I believe it is infringing on legitimate businesses. I think it is infringing on the investment that the state and the city made in the 42nd Street area, and I think it has to be stopped.”

Never one to let law or constitutional rights get in the way of some feelz of his own:

It has been legal for women to go topless in New York since 1992, when the state’s Court of Appeals ruled in People v. Santorelli that New York’s public lewdness laws did not apply to a woman baring her breasts in public. State law also permits nudity — partial and full — in plays and other artistic performances.

Fortunately for the gov, he’s got people who actually know some law to do some spin control when he says something laughably stupid.

An aide to Mr. Cuomo said the governor did not believe the women were violating the lewdness laws, but did think their tactics flouted laws against harassment, aggressive panhandling and impeding pedestrian traffic. “I believe we can enforce the law and clean it up,” Mr. Cuomo said in the NY1 interview.

All of which would be deeply convincing, but for the fact that nobody made a friggin’ peep about the people dressed like Disney characters, or superheroes, or the cowboy in his skivvies, who have been staples of Times Square since they eradicated it of all real New York culture during the sanitization.

Nope. This is all about the boobies. And for those who believed in the audacity of Cuomo, and de Blasio, to stand for the progressive ideals so close to the heart, the bad news is that as much as they will cry sad feminist tears with you, they won’t let you do so topless in Times Square.  Welcome to New York!