Free Republic

In New York City, social clubs backed by China undermined a congressional candidate who once challenged the regime on Chinese television. They helped unseat a state senator for attending a banquet with the president of Taiwan. And they condemned a City Council candidate on social media for supporting Hong Kong democracy. In the past few years, these organizations have quietly foiled the careers of politicians who opposed China’s authoritarian government while backing others who supported policies of the country’s ruling Communist Party. The groups, many of them tax-exempt nonprofits, have allowed America’s most formidable adversary to influence elections in the...

For a candidate who claims to stand against the influence of wealth and power, Zohran Mamdani sure knows how to rake in both. His campaign hauled in a staggering $1,024,184 between July 12 and August 18—more than double Mayor Eric Adams’ (D) $425,181 and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) $541,301, and far ahead of Republican Curtis Sliwa’s $406,392. At last count, Mamdani had over $4.3 million in the bank—more than any other New York City mayoral contender. But as with most political stories that sound too good to be true, there’s a catch: much of that money isn’t coming from...

Kansas City’s $50 million experiment with free bus fare is hitting the brakes — because the city can no longer afford it. Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s socialist proposals — including free buses in the five boroughs and Soviet-style, city-owned grocery stores — are now 0-2 when tried elsewhere, after Kansas City’s own venture with a government-run grocery abruptly closed earlier this month. The Midwest city used federal COVID-19 relief money in 2020 to become the first in the country to institute free buses. But local funding dried up, and riders and conductors slammed the buses as unreliable, filthy, rolling homeless...

Jay Cashman, a multi-million dollar donor to the campaign of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, isn't pleased with the placement of a new bike lane next to his $19 million mansion. Cashman contends that "these new bike lanes will decrease safety, eliminate too many parking spaces, lead to more traffic congestion, and lead to slower response times for emergency vehicles." Mayor Wu asserts that "bike lanes make roads safer. Crashes have declined by 51% on streets where bikers and drivers are separated by posts or other barriers. They also make it more convenient and affordable for those who can't afford to...

Socialism (communism), as is being packaged in New York City, can...work? For a season. The appeal to “affordability” and “free stuff” has a strong draw. The glossy brochure presents free transportation, state-run grocery stores, rent freezes, and the confiscation of unused housing. Of course, long-term, these ideas have been tried before andhave failed miserably, as the Kansas City–run grocery store just failed, and as state-run stores failed in the Soviet Union. Seizing the means of production and price controls, as Zohran Mamdani has proposed, are responsible for the deaths of more than 100 million Russians, Ukrainians, Chinese, Cambodians, Venezuelans, Cubans,...

On Thursday morning, Time magazine released its latest cover dated September 8 with the lead story “The Meaning of Zohran Mamdani.” Predictably, the story by Mark Chiusano was as mind-numbingly stupid and weak-kneed as a profile of Barack Obama in the mid-2000s. Chiusano called him “very eloquent,” “fun,” and “more gifted than almost any of his peers,” and facing “adulation” plus “notoriety” in the face of “xenophobic death threats.” The fluff came out as thick as mud with Chiusano fawning right off the bat that “[i]t’s not easy to move around New York City as Zohran Mamdani anymore” and taking...

Not everyone was eager to welcome New York City's Democratic mayoral nominee, Zohran Mamdani, to Staten Island on Wednesday afternoon. "Go back to where you came from. We don't want you on Staten Island," a protester wearing a "Trump girl" t-shirt and holding an American flag shouted at the 33-year-old self-described socialist as he exited the backdoor of the Istanbul Bay Authentic Mediterranean Restaurant. Inside the event, as Mamdani kicked off his third anti-Trump event of the week, protesters outside the restaurant drowned out the introductory speeches with their cowbells, sirens and megaphones. Despite the heat in the crowded restaurant...

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...

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...

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.

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...

"Nice city you have here — it would be a shame if something were to happen to it."Something bad is about to happen to New York City. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. The greatest city in the world deserves something better than a commie-racist/nepo-red-diaper-baby like Zohran Mamdani as its mayor.But recent news has me convinced that the commie-racist/nepo-red-diaper-baby will be the city's next mayor.President Donald Trump called Mamdani a "communist lunatic" back in June, and he isn't wrong. Every time some old social media post of the Democrat mayoral nominee resurfaces, he's boasting that "the end goal is...

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...

NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is a silver-spoon socialist shamelessly living in a dirt cheap rent-stabilized apartment – and it’s time to move out, fed up neighbors and critics told The Post. 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 — galling facts that reached critical mass Saturday. “It’s unfortunate that he supports policies that are great for the fortunate few [who] get these apartments,” said Jerry DeFazio, 33, a mechanical engineer who lived in...

Golem Salami, spokesman for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, announced that Rouzbeh Vadi, one of Iran's top nuclear scientists, was hanged this week. "The fact that Vadi was not taken out by the Israeli air attacks like our six other nuclear scientists were raised our suspicions," Salami said. "Vadi was arrested and interrogated. Despite the rigorous torture applied by our best experts he would not confess. However, our offer to spare his family from execution if he would admit to being a spy for the Mossad persuaded him to admit his guilt. We are also pleased to confirm the arrest...

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...

Picture a seven-year-old girl living under communism in the 1980s. Her dad brings her to a local grocery store in the Ukraine, their home, in the old Soviet Union. He tells her to look around at the store and memorize the scene. This was described to me in a radio interview a few years ago by Marina Medvin, a successful D.C. area attorney and writer for Townhall and Forbes. She was that little girl.

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...

In a chilling and grotesque act of psychological warfare, Hamas released a disturbing video showing Israeli hostage Evyatar David—visibly emaciated and barely able to stand—being forced to dig what appears to be his own grave in a tunnel beneath Gaza. The 24-year-old hostage is seen crossing off days on a calendar, holding a nearly empty can of beans, and stating he hasn’t eaten in days. “This can is for two days… so that I don’t die,” he says. “This is the grave I think I’m going to be buried in. Time is running out.” The nearly five-minute video, released Friday,...

Widows and grieving mothers of fallen NYPD hero cops aren’t buying mayoral contender Zohran Mamdani’s pro-police switcheroo. Mamdani tried to make a clean break from his “defund the police” past on Wednesday as he privately visited with the family of NYPD Officer Didarul Islam, who was gunned down in the Midtown mass shooting by crazed gunman Shane Tamura. “Now, when a police officer is killed he wants to say, ‘Oh, I support the police,’” Tatyana Timoshenko, the mother of slain NYPD Det. Russel Timoshenko, told The Post. Timoshenko — whose 23-year-old son was shot and killed in 2007 while pulling...