Midtown Massacre: Challenge for Anti-Cop Mamdani. Councilwoman Gloats Over Brutal Beating of White People. Sydney Sweeney!

While we’re learning about the innocent victims of Monday’s shooting rampage in Midtown Manhattan (here, here, and here), mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s anti-police rhetoric is coming back to haunt him.

“NYC Shooting Puts Mamdani on Spot over Policing” is the headline of a Wall Street Journal news story. Mamdani knows this:

The Queens state assemblyman was in Uganda for his wedding at the time of the shooting. When Mamdani returned to New York on Wednesday, he went to the home of the officer’s family. He said at a press conference later in the day that he had held the officer’s sobbing father in his arms.

“This is a time to lead this city in coming together,” he said. “Not a moment to try and score the very points that turn so many New Yorkers away from politics.” 

What Mamdani describes condescendingly as “scoring points,” others would describe as hashing out an important issue—public safety—before it is too late.

“What Officer Islam’s Sacrifice Reminds Us” is the title of a City Journal piece. Officer Didarul Islam was the NYPC officer who was gunned down Monday. His sacrifice reminds us that “No city can thrive unless it honors the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect it.” City Journal notes:

As for those who gain notoriety by deriding the NYPD and the work that it does, I hope this tragedy will make them stop and consider something: the calls coming from those Park Avenue offices on Monday evening were not asking for mediators, social workers, or unarmed safety agents. They were asking for armed police officers. 

Mamdani has called for the replacement of police with social workers in many instances. Mamdani is attempting to backtrack on previously stated opinions. Grieving widows and mothers of NYPD’s fallen heroes aren’t buying it.

Meanwhile, in Cincinnati a public official exults in the vicious beatdown of white citizens by a black mob:

A city councilwoman in Cincinnati is under fire for comments posted on Facebook in the wake of a brutal downtown beatdown last weekend. 

Under a post from a Facebook user called Leohna Alia La JCannon that shows the vicious assault, an account that appears to belong to Councilwoman Victoria Parks commented, “They begged for that beat down!”

“I am grateful for the whole story,” the comment continues. 

The beatings occurred on the corner of Fourth and Elm Street in Cincinnati’s downtown business district in the early morning hours on Saturday. Video that has been shared widely online shows a group of people savagely assaulting two others during a confrontation, with a woman being knocked out cold in the street. 

In her official city biography page, Parks says she “led the charge in passing Racism as a Public Health Crisis” when working for the Hamilton County governor. It also says she “introduced, and passed, Juneteenth as a paid holiday for Hamilton County employees.”

Three suspects have been arrested. One was apparently seen on video chasing a victim until he fell—at which point the pursuer started kicking him. Here’s the kind of thing the Cincinnati Councilwoman celebrates:

Detectives also alleged that Matthews was seen on video chasing one of the victims into the street, and when the victim fell, Matthews allegedly started kicking him several times.

When he stopped kicking the suspect, the detectives claimed, Matthews appeared “visibly, just, enraged” before going to hit another person.

Ohio Republican Senator Bernie Merino posted a picture of one of the victims (with permission) and said that Cincinnati deserves a better political leadership.

We need a palate cleanser after that—and here is one: former Vice President Kamala Harris just announced that she will not run for Governor of California. “A grateful nation celebrates,” writes National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar. Mr. Blehar adds:

Improbably named California elections reporter Elex Michaelson explained Harris’s reasoning on Twitter/X: Apparently Harris was “tempted” to enter the race but decided against it because she “ultimately didn’t want to do the job.“ Normally I’m not one to credit anonymous sources too easily, but that definitely sounds like the Kamala Harris I know.

President Trump will not be pleased with the Fed’s decision to keep interest rates steady, though two members did peel off and dissent. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is keeping his options open, hoping that “the economy will reveal its true self in the next few months,” according to a news report in the Wall Street Journal. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal argues that the GDP report that showed a healthy 3 percent growth is “weird.”

You know what else is weird? Senator Ted Cruz addressing the raging controversy over Sydney Sweeney and her jeans. From USA TODAY:

After an ad starring Sydney Sweeney outraged viewers, Sen. Ted Cruz is coming to her defense.

The Texas Republican took to X July 29 to blast the “crazy left” for criticizing Sweeney’s American Eagle denim jeans campaign as a dog whistle for eugenics and the glorification of whiteness.

Responding to a New York Post article, which detailed the controversy, Cruz wrote: “Wow. Now the crazy Left has come out against beautiful women. I’m sure that will poll well….”

USA TODAY columnist Ingrid Jaques weighs in succinctly on the triggering ad: “She looks good. They don’t.” Uh, oh:  Townhall’s Derek Hunter says basically the same thing—but waaaay blunter.

Yesterday I mentioned the New York Times’ admitting that a photo of a child starving in Gaza was fake news. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled “Gaza Starvation Photos Tell a Thousand Lies,” Eitan Fischberger, who was embedded with IDF soldiers, says that Hamas routinely exploits pictures of seriously sick children. The Western media goes along with it.  

Veteran political journalist, who knows the landscape down to the precinct captains, Michael Barone writes that the usual midterm trend of the party in power loosing seats may not hold in 2026. Barone writes:

Why are these Democrats, some in states such as South Dakota and Nebraska that have reelected Democratic senators in recent years, shunning the Democratic label? Most likely because, in a country of increased straight-ticket voting, they believe the Democratic label is political poison.  …

Barone also cites good economic news. Miranda Devine writes that Trump proved the naysayers wrong again with his latest trade deal. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the “Trump accounts” may pave the way to privatizing Social Security. To the left this threatens a “safety-net,” never mind that the safety is facing solvency issues unless reforms are made. Speaking of safety nets, I am guessing even my lefty pals can’t justify this abuse.  

The fertility crisis is becoming worldwide. Nicholas Eberstadt has a good piece on depopulation. Our friend Naomi Schaeffer Riley has a good take on why women are not having babies.

I’m sure you’ve heard about the Health and Human Services report on organ donation. It found “systemic disregard for the sanctity human life and” premature procurement of organs (i.e., the donor was still alive). This New York Times headline should at least make you a little nervous: “Donor Organs Are Too Rare. We Need a New Definition of Death.”

Something cheery is needed before bid farewell this morning, and this it—a heretofore undiscovered ecosystem 30,000 feet deep in the ocean. The pictures are beautiful (and apparently there are not plastics):

An international team of researchers has discovered the world’s deepest known ecosystem sustained by chemicals seeping from the seafloor, submerged in water and darkness. The discovery expands the limits of where we know life can live on Earth.

“It’s a unique ecosystem,” said Dominic Papineau, an exobiologist who co-wrote the study on the deep-sea discovery published Wednesday in the journal Nature. “It’s a totally new thing that has not been seen before.”