RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.thefp.com/p/socialist-mayor-new-york-zohran-mamdani?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Zohran Mamdani vows to spend billions subsidizing buses, housing, and grocery stores. He says he’ll arrest the Israeli PM if he ever steps foot in NYC. And he’s surging in the polls.

Unless you follow New York politics like a hawk, chances are you’ve never heard of Zohran Kwame Mamdani. The 33-year-old socialist is one of the youngest candidates to ever seek the mayorship of New York City. If he wins, he wants to turn the Big Apple into a Havana on the Hudson with free buses, government-run grocery stores, and no more rent hikes for millions.

“It is socialism that we are fighting for,” he told an online audience in 2021.

In a city where 61 percent of residents say they’re struggling to meet their basic needs, Mamdani is gaining traction by vowing to “lower the cost of living” in New York City. His housing plan, one of his ideas on how to make New York more affordable, costs $100 billion, only slightly less than the entire size of this year’s city budget. That’s on top of the $7 billion his other agenda items would cost, including $800 million for free buses, $1.1 billion to build a new Department of Community Safety, and $5 billion funding free childcare for all kids ages 6 weeks to 5 years.

Mamdani is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a group that advocates abolishing prisons, granting voting rights to some “noncitizens,” ending “Israeli apartheid,” and establishing “a democratic secular state, from the river to the sea.” He has even said he would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli prime minister ever stepped foot in New York to prove “our values are in line with international law.”

Mamdani has also attended rallies held by Within Our Lifetime, a radical anti-Israel group that has been denounced by other progressives, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for protesting an exhibit dedicated to victims of October 7, 2023, the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel that left 1,200 dead. As the group reportedly chanted “kill another Zionist now” outside the exhibit, survivors inside gave testimony about the horror.

When asked twice to clarify his relationship to the group, the Mamdani campaign did not provide comment to The Free Press.

Six years ago, Mamdani was a total unknown, working as a foreclosure prevention counselor for Chhaya, a nonprofit focused on the “well-being of South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities in New York City.” That year, only one year after moving to Astoria, Queens, from the Upper West Side, he decided to run in the 2020 election for his new neighborhood’s seat in the New York State Assembly.

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/03/28/real-election-reform-at-last/

Lost amid a flash flood of recent news, President Donald Trump’s executive order to make American elections more fair and less likely to be corrupted by ideology-driven election officials is possibly a game-changer. If Trump’s order withstands the inevitable onslaught of legal and political challenges it will face, it will make a huge difference in future elections.

The ink had barely dried on Trump’s reform than the New York Times, setting the tone for the national media, ran this headline: “Trump Is Trying to Gain More Power Over Elections. Is His Effort Legal?”

So what does Trump’s order, dubbed “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” actually do?

Mainly, it seeks to ensure that those who vote are indeed American citizens – as required by current law, which states ignore or routinely fail to enforce – and that votes received after Election Day don’t get counted, since such votes are highly susceptible to cheating.

To do this, anyone filling out a federal voter registration form will need “documentary proof of citizenship” (for virtually all people, this requires doing nothing, since they are already recorded as U.S. citizens in federal databases).

It will require states to clean up their voter rolls, or lose federal funding for their elections, and encourages sharing of information across databases with the federal government.

It (again) bans foreign contributions to federal, state, or local elections, a law that already exists on the books but is rarely enforced.

It also requires, and this is important, paper ballots, or “a voter-verifiable paper record,” and bans voting systems using barcodes or QR codes, which can be tampered with, for vote data.

And it also reverses a number of Biden executive actions (“Bidenbucks,” anyone?) that, essentially, “turned federal agencies into Democratic voter turnout centers.”

Or, as our buddies over at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity put it: Trump Orders Clean Elections – What a Concept.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/new-york-appeals-court-blocks-nyc-noncitizen-voting-law-siding-with-republicans/

New York’s highest court on Thursday blocked a New York City law that would have allowed noncitizens to vote in municipal elections, upholding lower court rulings that sided with Republicans who challenged the measure.

In January 2022, New York City became the first major city in the nation to grant municipal voting rights to noncitizens after the the City Council passed the law in late 2021. The measure, however, was never fully implemented due to a legal challenge led by Republicans. If the challenge failed, more than 800,000 green card holders would have been allowed to vote in local elections, such as mayoral races.

The historically progressive New York Court of Appeals struck down the law by a 6-1 margin, concluding the New York constitution only allows citizens to vote.

While Republicans argued all noncitizens are prohibited from casting ballots, Democrats said the law should be interpreted as a floor instead of a ceiling. From that perspective, local governments could hypothetically expand voter eligibility to whomever they wish. The appeals court disagreed with this argument.

“Under that interpretation, municipalities are free to enact legislation that would enable anyone to vote – including . . . thirteen-year-old children,” Chief Judge Rowan Wilson wrote for the majority opinion.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/03/tim-walz-says-hes-considering-a-run-for-president-in-2028/

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said Sunday that he would “certainly consider” running for president in 2028, despite his disastrous White House bid alongside failed presidential nominee Kamala Harris, last November.

“If I think I could offer something … I would certainly consider that,” he told the New Yorker Radio Hour during its March 2 broadcast.

One of the reasons Kamala Harris reportedly chose Walz to be her running mate in 2024 was because he had indicated that he had no presidential ambitions.

“Look, I never had an ambition to be president or vice president. I was honored to be asked,” Walz insisted.

His addition to the 2024 Democrat ticket was meant to syphon off voters from the white male vote but failed in its mission due to multiple controversies and missteps, including the governor’s mischaracterization of his military record, his ties to Communist China, and his support for tampons in boys’ restrooms.

The Democrat has faced ridicule online since his interview with the New Yorker went public.

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/12/30/one-in-five-harris-voters-in-2024-arent-sure-theyd-vote-for-her-again-in-2028-ii-tipp-poll/

Vice President Kamala Harris lost soundly to President-elect Donald Trump, despite spending well over $1 billion on her campaign. And if those who voted for her are any indication, she might want to hang up her presidential aspirations, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

The online national I&I/TIPP Poll asked 1,411 adults across the country this question: “In the 2024 election for president, did you vote for Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, another candidate, or did you not vote for president?”

Of those answering, 41% answered “Donald Trump,” 38% said “Kamala Harris,” 15% said “Did not vote,” 3% responded “Other,” and 3% preferred not to answer. The poll’s margin of error is +/-2.6 percentage points.

The political split is revealing: Trump received 85% of all Republican votes in the sample, while Harris took just 80% of the Democrats. Trump and Harris tied among independents, with 28% each.

But, Harris received fewer Republican votes (5%) than Trump’s 7% of Democrats. So not only did Harris get fewer votes overall, a major part of her loss can be attributed to Democrats defecting to Trump or third-party candidates.

To get at how voters perceive Harris and a possible future candidacy in four years, I&I/TIPP further queried poll respondents: “Vice President Kamala Harris is reportedly considering a presidential run in 2028. Which of the following best describes your feelings about this possibility?”

The possible answers included “Excited,” “Optimistic,” “Concerned,” “Scared,” and “Not sure.”

The responses aren’t encouraging. Among all those answering, 43% said they were either “excited” (18%) or “optimistic” (25%) over a future prospective presidential run by Harris. But an overall 43% called themselves either “concerned” (25%) or “scared” (18%). Another 14% weren’t sure.

https://tomklingenstein.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-never-trump-machine/

Kamala Harris and the Democrat establishment may have blown over a billion dollars to lose the 2024 election, but it’s their Never Trump allies most likely facing oblivion after President Donald Trump’s historic victory.

If so, good riddance.

But don’t be too quick to count out the likes of Bill Kristol, Charlie Sykes, Liz Cheney, or the operatives behind groups such as the Lincoln Project who helped organize the Left’s 2020 campaign to oust Trump from the White House. They may still play a role in the second Trump “resistance” beginning in January — if Democrats will let them. 

At the heart of that effort is a set of insider groups — niche publications like The Bulwark and think tanks for exiled ex-conservatives like the Niskanen Center — that led the old GOP’s exiles into the wilderness, forged a powerful political force for undermining Trump’s Republican base, then pledged itself fully to the Harris campaign and the regime that supported it. At each step of the way, these “principled conservatives” grew tangibly more liberal, more hawkish on America’s forever wars, and more fanatical in their hatred of the America First movement. 

By November 2024, however, Never Trump Inc. ended up friendless and defeated. Here’s the story of their rise and fall.

The Nonprofit Revolving Door

There’s no understanding the Never Trump cabal without reading its flagship commentary website: The Bulwark. 

The site operates as a hub for all things anti-Trump, charting the Right’s descent (as they see it) into knuckle-dragging white supremacy, authoritarianism, and subservience to Moscow. It’s a refuge for bitter Beltway relics of the Bush-Romney establishment who smugly cast themselves as the true heirs of Ronald Reagan, rather than out-of-touch elites more aligned with Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden than the Gipper.

The Bulwark was founded by a handful of once-influential Beltway writers, most famously Bill Kristol, son of the late Irving Kristol and editor of the now-defunct Weekly Standard. But his co-founders, ex-Wisconsin radio host Charlie Sykes, who left the Bulwark for MSNBC in February, and Sarah Longwell, a political consultant and one-time chair of the LGBT group Log Cabin Republicans, are just as critical to The Bulwark’s evolution into Never Trump’s lodestar.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/26/what-was-so-different-this-time-about-trumps-election/

In the weeks before the 2016 Trump Electoral College victory, Trump was polling between 35 and 40 percent.

He would average only about 41 percent approval over his tumultuous four-year tenure.

No one knows what lies ahead over the next four years. But for now, Trump already polls at well over 50 percent approval.

Trump’s inauguration in a few weeks likely will not resemble his 2016 ceremony.

In the 2016-7 transition, Democratic-affiliated interests ran commercials urging electors to become “faithless” and thus illegally reject their states’ popular votes and instead elect the loser, Hillary Clinton.

Massive demonstrations met Trump on Inauguration Day.

In less than four months after assuming the presidency, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate the hoax of Russian collusion.

That wasted 22-month, $40 million investigation found no collusion but did derail the first two Trump years.

What followed the collusion ruse was a consistent effort to undermine the Trump presidency—two subsequent impeachments, the laptop “disinformation” hoax, the COVID-19 nationwide lockdown, and news suppression of any mention of the Chinese lab origin of the virus or questioning the closing of schools.

In the Trump administration’s last summer of 2020, 120 days of riot, arson, looting, assault, and murder followed, with the denouement of the January 6 turmoil.

In contrast, during the 2024-2025 transition, Trump has all but assumed the presidency. Over 100 foreign leaders have elbowed each other to be invited to Mar-a-Lago or to phone in their congratulations to the newly elected Trump.