Free Republic

I LIVE in New York City. “Proud Democratic Socialist” Zohran Mamdani is likely to be my next mayor. I’m not happy about it. But I am outnumbered. Mamdani is popular. He won more primary votes than any other candidate in the city’s history. Minneapolis may also elect a socialist mayor. Why?! How deluded can voters be? In my new video, I explain why their socialist ideas are destructive. Mamdani mocks those of us who fear socialism. He says socialism just means that the state “provides whatever is necessary for its people to live a dignified life.” Sounds nice. But socialism...

If you thought New York politics couldn’t get more cynical, think again. An exposé from The New York Post has shone a harsh spotlight on one more act in the city’s ideological theater of the absurd—Jews for Zohran, a meticulously choreographed campaign crafted to launder the record of Zohran Mamdani, the self-styled Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens with a well-documented history of Israel-bashing. The group’s name sounds grassroots—almost quaint—like typical campaign affinity group fare. But its roots lie not in Astoria or the Bronx, and certainly not in Israel, but halfway around the globe in Shanghai, where pro-Beijing billionaire Neville...

The closely watched New York mayoral and governor’s races appear to be forming into shapes that will bring little comfort to centrist Democrats, with both elections happening in November. A new Siena Institute poll released on Tuesday shows New York City’s Democratic socialist mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, leading former New York governor Andrew Cuomo by 19 percentage points – while the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik is chipping away at incumbent Democrat Kathy Hochul’s lead in a hypothetical contest for the New York governor’s mansion in 2026. Hochul’s lead over Stefanik, who was nominated to be US ambassador to the United...

The mayoral candidate’s support comes from a young, mostly white, often childless, likely temporary population insulated from the consequences of the urban decline they’re about to cause. There is a version of American liberalism that treats progress as a shared destiny, social improvement being the gradual and unstoppable realization of the popular hope for a better country and world. This was the rhetoric of the Obama era, a time when the arc of history was bending ever forward and when liberals saw their coming accomplishments as the just and natural fulfillment of past movements and ideas. Leaving aside Zohran Mamdani’s...

A not so rhetorical exercise that occasionally makes the rounds asks the reader to look at the 45 goals of the Communist Party that were read into the Congressional Record in 1963 and consider how many have actually been accomplished. “Not for nothing,” as they say, but a significant percentage of the items on that list are already in place. For the purposes of this essay, I would direct the reader to this little gem: 22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks...

Ben Rhodes points to Ugandan-born Democratic socialist as model for party's future directionBen Rhodes, a key former Obama administration official, believes the Democratic Party is "afraid of its own future" and needs to embrace the strategy of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who identifies as a Democratic socialist. Rhodes, who was deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, is perhaps best known for his advocacy of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. He has since emerged as a prominent figure in liberal media as a contributor to MSNBC and co-host of the "Pod Save The World" podcast. His...

Ruth Messinger, the trailblazing Jewish political leader who in 1997 became the first and only woman to win the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor, endorsed Zohran Mamdani on Monday. Her support came as the Democratic nominee launched his citywide “Five Boroughs Against Trump” tour in Manhattan, joined by Assemblyman Harvey Epstein and Rep. Jerry Nadler, co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Caucus, who had endorsed Mamdani after his primary victory.

Billionaire Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has responded to fellow Democrat and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's assertion that billionaires should not exist. “How much money you have doesn’t determine what your values are,” Pritzker said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “I’m a Democrat because I believe that we’ve got to stand up for our democracy and against the MAGA Republicans who are literally trying to take away people’s rights all across this country.” Advertisement Pritzker has an estimated net worth of $3.7 billion, according to Forbes, in part due to his family’s ownership...

'We can win the Democratic primary in 2028,' one convention delegate says. CHICAGO—The Democratic Socialists of America sent a clear message to Democrats during its biennial convention: We're in charge now. Zohran Mamdani's surprise win wasn't an anomaly, delegates said, but rather the start of the DSA's rise to power over the Democratic Party. Roughly 1,200 DSA members gathered over the weekend at McCormick Place, Chicago's convention center, to solidify the party's platform. Tickets for the three-day convention, attended by the Washington Free Beacon, cost $225 and required party membership. Attendees were also required to submit proof of a negative...

Gov. Kathy Hochul slighted mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani in a live TV interview Sunday — signaling she may not endorse him in the election even after he praised her “courage.” “We still have many differences,” Hochul said, keeping her distance from her fellow Democrat during a Fox News Sunday interview. “I don’t know how you whitewash that away.” Fox host Shannon Bream had read a statement from Mamdani effusively praising Hochul for sparring with President Trump and Republicans over redistricting fights that could dictate who controls Congress.

Mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo proposed “Zohran’s law” that would block privileged New Yorkers like his socialist rival Zohran Mamdani from living in rent-stabilized apartments. Mamdani, 33, who rakes in $142,000 a year as a state assemblyman and whose wealthy family includes his filmmaker mom and professor dad, has been living in a $2,300-a-month, one-bedroom pad in Astoria. “I’m calling the legislation ‘Zohran’s Law.’ This is obviously an abuse of the system,” Cuomo told The Post Sunday. “We’re not supposed to be providing rent-stabilized apartments to the children of millionaires.”

The graffiti appeared hours after The New York Times issued an editor’s note amending its July 24 article, “Gazans are dying of starvation.” Five days after publication, the Times acknowledged that its story referenced a Gazan boy, Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, suffering from severe malnutrition, but later learned from his doctor and medical records that the child also had pre-existing health conditions. The editor’s note underscored that the article had been updated to reflect these new details.

A 17-year-old was taken into custody after three people were shot in Times Square early Saturday morning, according to police. Police blocked off the area and recovered a firearm near West 44th Street and Seventh Avenue just before 1:30 a.m., where the shooting happened, authorities say. An 18-year-old girl was grazed in the neck, a 19-year-old man was shot in the foot and a 65-year-old man was hit in the left leg during the shooting, officials report. They were all taken to a local hospital and are expected to survive. “It’s a very overwhelming experience for the fact that…there’s so...

Once upon a time, George Will was a conservative. I'm not sure what he is anymore after his TDS drove him to vote for Joe Biden. Even if he didn't want to vote for Donald Trump, voting for Biden seems like a denial of everything he was before. It's certainly not a conservative position. But what he said on Friday on HBO's "Real Time" with Bill Maher was in some ways even more surprising than that. Maher and Will were talking about Democrat NYC mayoral race nominee, Zohran Mamdani. Maher went hard against Mamdani, saying he says "the things that...

Zohran Mamdani, mayoral candidate in New York City, has been expressing high hopes of spreading socialism around New York. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has admitted to assisting Mamdani with his platform and having helped him win the primary. Mamdani tosses out Marxist quotes — control the means of production, altering private property ownership, state-run grocery stores, free transportation — but there is more, or perhaps less, to the current Democratic Socialists, and therefore more, or perhaps less, to Mamdani. There used to be a clear distinction between socialism and communism. When the Communist Manifesto was released, socialism was...

New York City socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani took aim at President Donald Trump in a Thursday press conference amid a report that the president is weighing getting involved in the race. "Donald Trump has not called me," Mamdani told reporters on Thursday in New York City. "I've said that my approach to Washington will not be a reflexive one, it is one that will be in opposition to Donald Trump's administration when it comes for New Yorkers, when it comes at the expense of the welfare of the people that I'm seeking to serve," Mamdani continued. "If the president...

According to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, he has had no contact with President Donald Trump since just after last summer’s assassination attempt, when he recalls leaving Trump a message. “I can’t remember the last time I spoke to President Trump,” he told reporters Thursday. That would contradict a report in The New York Times on Wednesday that said the two had spoken in recent weeks about the mayor’s race. Cuomo called the report “false.” What You Need To Know Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday denied a New York Times report that he recently spoke with President Donald Trump about...

As New Yorkers mourned the victims of a mass shooting last week in a midtown Manhattan office building, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, inserted himself into the discourse. His comments concerned a photo taken Thursday of Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, a Democrat, sitting on a folding chair inside a mosque, next to Mayor Eric Adams. To her left, men in kurtas and police uniforms kneel on a carpeted floor. Hochul wears a dark pantsuit, a somber expression and, on her head, a black scarf looped over her hair. After an anonymous social media user posted the photo and asked...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a champion of the progressive left, is praising democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s focus on affordability as he runs for mayor in the nation’s most populous city as a model for the Democratic Party. Asked by Fox News as she teamed up at a campaign event at a union headquarters on Monday with the Democratic Party’s New York City mayoral nominee if Mamdani was what the future of the party should look like, Warren answered “you bet.” “The Democratic Party needs to stand up and be clear. We are the party that fights for affordability, for working...

Fake Indian Endorses Real Indian https://buff.ly/Ben71Qohttps://babylonbee.com/news/fake-indian-endorses-real-indian NEW YORK, NY — As the race for mayor of New York intensified, one prominent candidate landed the support of another popular Democrat, as a fake Indian made a public endorsement of a real Indian. Fake American Indian Elizabeth Warren made a public appearance in the Big Apple on Monday to offer he approval and support to New York City mayoral candidate and real Indian Indian Zohran Mamdani. "As a pretend Indian, I am honored to endorse a for real one," Warren told reporters. "I've watched what capitalist Republicans have done to New York....