Remember Women’s March co-founder Linda Sarsour?
Well, if socialist Zohran Mamdani becomes Mayor of New York tomorrow, we’ll see a lot more of Ms. Sarsour.
Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour issued a thinly veiled warning Saturday night to New York City mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani, saying she will “hold Zohran accountable” to fulfill campaign promises, including dismantling an NYPD unit that polices terrorism threats, protests and riots.
In a livestream on Instagram, obtained by Fox News Digital, Sarsour told her followers that electing Mamdani doesn’t mean that the network that supports him will “let him do whatever the hell he wants when he gets to City Hall.”…
A member of the Democratic Socialists of America along with Mamdani, Sarsour has been like a political mentor to Mamdani. In 2017, they canvassed together for a city council candidate, Khader El-Yateem, endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, in a race he lost. Not long after, Mamdani joined the board of the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, which Sarsour co-founded. She endorsed Mamdani’s winning race for the New York General Assembly and was an early supporter when he announced his race for the mayor’s job.
Ms. Sarsour is an interesting character.
The New York Post has pulled out the stops. A New York Post editorial is headlined “20 reasons to vote against NYC mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani.” The first two reasons: He Hates the Police. He Really Hates the Police. An antisemitism watchdog has posted a video about the intention of Mamdani allies to take over the Democratic Party from within—rather than refute it, the Mamdani camp loves it. Let’s call it the Trojan Horse Theory. Early voting in the mayor’s race ends with a record 735,000 ballots cast and a surge of young voters.
Former President Barack Obama called Mamdani to offer to be his sounding board, but when it came to an official endorsement from the former President it was “No, Thank You, Mam.” New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin argues that a Mamdani win would be a “long, sour decline” for New York,
Virginia gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears is polling behind Democrat Abigail Spanberger but has a good piece on Fox Digital outlining the reasons she wants to be Governor. The New Jersey Governor’s race between Republican Jack Ciattarelli and Dem Rep. Mikie Sherrill is this close. Utterly Predictable: Mollie Jong-Fast visits the Sherrill campaign and finds a double standard for female candidates. Whatever happens, Liberal Patriot Ruy Teixeira says the forecast for Dems is “rainy at best.”
Republicans have pushed back on President Trump’s call to end the government shutdown by killing the filibuster. Powerline’s John Hinderaker lists several bad things Dems would do if the filibuster were killed. The sticking point for Dems is extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies. The Wall Street Journal’s Allysia Finley explains how blue-city politicians use ObamaCare to bail out their cities at the taxpayer’s expense:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago was scrambling to close a $369 million deficit in 2013. The inception of ObamaCare offered an enticing target for cost shaving: retiree health coverage. …
So Mr. Emanuel dumped his city’s retirees onto the nascent ObamaCare exchanges, where federal subsidies can reduce premium payments. Voilà, Chicago’s $2.1 billion unfunded retiree healthcare liability vanished. Now U.S. taxpayers pick up the tab for Chicago’s retirees in their 50s and early 60s.
Chicago isn’t alone in trying this neat fiscal trick. Detroit, Stockton, Calif., and San Bernardino, Calif., also saved billions by shifting pre-Medicare retirees to ObamaCare when they filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in the 2010s. That minimized cuts to workers’ compensation and pensions. Detroit’s $170 million annual retiree healthcare bill made up nearly 20% of its general fund budget, one of the city’s biggest costs.
Other municipalities may move retirees to ObamaCare to avoid layoffs and tax hikes. ObamaCare could soon became a safety valve for underwater cities.
Maverick Democratic Senator John Fetterman, meanwhile, is slamming his party over the continuing government shutdown, particularly noting that food stamp benefits have run out for 42 million recipients. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says that the food benefits could be restarted by Wednesday. But 42 million on food stamps? Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says her agency has found massive fraud in the program, which must be investigated.
Time to talk about something deeply unpleasant. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal is headlined “The New Right’s Antisemites,” which charges that Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation “floundered” in addressing questions about Tucker Carlson and someone called Nick Fuentes:
On Thursday Mr. Roberts released a startling video to oppose the alleged “cancellation” of Tucker Carlson and even of Hitler fanboy Nick Fuentes, whom Mr. Carlson had hosted for a chummy podcast interview.
“I want to be clear about one thing: Christians can critique the state of Israel without being antisemitic,” Mr. Roberts began, sounding like what William F. Buckley Jr. used to call “a pyromaniac in a field of straw men.” This is what Hamas supporters on the left say: What do you mean? We were only criticizing Israel. Not exactly.
On Monday’s Carlson show, Mr. Fuentes assailed “organized Jewry” as the obstacle to American unity and “these Zionist Jews” as the impediment to the right’s success, while calling himself a fan of Joseph Stalin. Even while toning it down for the largest audience he’ll ever have, Mr. Fuentes still came off as an internet mashup of the worst of the 20th century.
Scott Johnson of Powerline has two powerful takes (here and here) on this painful matter. The Free Press devoted no fewer than four stories to the issue, including an interview with Senator Ted Cruz by ace reporter Peter Savrodnik. Erick Erickson writes about “The Moral Rot Eating the American Right.” But it’s not just the Right that’s yummy. Maine senatorial hopeful Graham Platner says the controversy over his Nazi tattoos has made him a better candidate.
I didn’t watch President Trump’s “60 Minutes” interview—something tells me I’ll have a chance catch him on TV sometime this week—but here is the Real Clear Politics summary.
A mass stabbing on a train to London left eleven injured with two victims sustaining life-threatening injuries. The sub headline says, “Police make two arrests, say they have seen no sign of terrorist motive.” Regarding that, I agree with Powerline:
As for motive, they are positive that they know what it isn’t but have no clue as to what it is.
I was interested that a London Telegraph story that noted that “a British-born suspect” had been questioned. “A British-born subject” is a curious description. Another Powerline post highlights that the authorities haven’t yet told us who the suspects are, despite having had plenty of time to collect their identities. Hot Air’s Beege Welborn explores the recent spate of stabbing in the U.K. in “Two* Fellows Went All Stabby on a British Train Yesterday.”
Catesby Leigh is a co-founder of the National Civic Art Society, which waged a worthy and valiant battle against having Frank Gehry create a memorial for President Eisenhower. It has a lot of conservatives in its ranks, and when Leigh writes about architecture, it’s always good. So I’m at least inclined to pay attention to Leigh’s “The Original Trump Ballroom Design Was Good. The Expansion? Less So,” in the Washington Post.
Ken Burns is so slouch when it comes to promoting his documentaries. His forthcoming magnum opus is “The American Revolution.” “Ken Burns on America’s Origin Story: “The Most Important Event Since the Birth of Christ” is the headline on a CBS interview with Burns.
The Karine Jean-Pierre trainwreck continues. Andrew Stiles, who reviewed her book for the Free Beacon, says that it’s so awful that it has shaken Democrats’ faith in DEI. Not that KJP was a DEI hire or anything.
