But funny thing, now it’s come to this:

Mayor Zohran Mamdani opened a new front in his ongoing battle with New York City’s wealthy after his administration published a searchable database identifying affluent property owners who could be subject to the city’s proposed pied-à-terre tax, a move critics say could expose them to harassment and public safety risks.

The database, released by the city’s Department of Finance, allows users to search properties and view the names and addresses of owners whose non-primary residences could be subject to the proposed tax. …

… A person familiar with the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the city has publicly released similar property tax rolls every year for many years in accordance with New York state law. …

However, critics argue the database goes well beyond traditional public records by compiling the names and addresses of affluent property owners into a single, easily searchable location, potentially creating new privacy and security risks. The debate carries added weight in America’s largest city, where public safety remains a persistent political issue and affluent residents have long cited crime as a top concern.

While property ownership records have long been public, opponents say the city’s decision to aggregate them into a dedicated database could make wealthy homeowners more vulnerable to harassment and potential violence.

Of course it makes them more vulnerable. Isn’t that the point? Mamdani got elected by appealing to the Luigi-worshipping crowd, and this will please them no end. It will also give important information to the bolder among them.

But that’s not all. Remember the five million dollar threshold?:

Meanwhile, the Real Estate Board of New York President James Whelan argued that the database also illustrates how broadly the proposed tax could reach beyond the ultra-wealthy residents its supporters have emphasized. Although Mamdani initially promoted the proposal as a tax on secondary homes worth more than $5 million and owned by the “ultra-wealthy and global elites,” the final rules use different Department of Finance valuation thresholds depending on the type of property. According to the New York Post, over 960,000 residences could be listed in the database, which makes it possible to search and download property owners’ information, including their names and addresses.

“What this database really demonstrates is that the second-home tax is far broader and more complicated than its supporters have suggested,” he continued. “Policymakers should take a hard look at the many homeowners who could be swept in despite not fitting the profile of the ultra-wealthy residents this tax was supposedly designed to target.”

For condos, the threshold is now one million dollars. That doesn’t get you all that much in NYC, especially in some parts of it. And although these are second homes, who thinks that’s where Mamdani and the DSA will choose to stop?

More:

“What this database really demonstrates is that the second-home tax is far broader and more complicated than its supporters have suggested,” he continued. “Policymakers should take a hard look at the many homeowners who could be swept in despite not fitting the profile of the ultra-wealthy residents this tax was supposedly designed to target.”

Kulaks never were especially rich, either. They were the topic of envy and resentment nonetheless. And that’s what Mamdani and the DSA trade on – envy and resentment.

More:

At the center of the debate is whether the city can ask more of its wealthiest residents without weakening the tax base that helps fund municipal government.

Ya think?? Thing is, New York City is – or used to be – a special place in which to live, and people were willing to pay a premium to do so. Mamdani and company are assuming it will continue to be attractive to enough rich people (and rich 2nd property owners) to continue to live there or own property there, despite the increased taxes.

The following is no surprise:

Fox News Digital reached out to Mamdani’s office asking why the administration chose to publish the searchable database rather than notify affected property owners privately and whether it conducted a legal or privacy review before making the information available online. The office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Here’s Mamdani again:

“If you have a second home in New York City worth more than $5M, check your mailbox when you’re back in the five boroughs — because you’ve got mail,” he crooned last week before promising the initiative would yield “the best parks, libraries, and schools in the world.”

Sure thing. And the best government-run grocery stores.

The tax was originally estimated to affect between 11,200 and 31,000 properties. But guess what? It presently is due to affect 960,000.

Mamdani is malevolent, but he’s not alone. He is part of a movement, one that is growing, one that uses the ignorance and resentment of a large proportion of young people in order to seize power and make society over anew in the image they think best – or at least, the image that will give them the most power.

[NOTE: Speaking of city grocery stores, there’s a lawsuit brewing:

An immigrant-led business group is gearing up to sue New York City over Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s controversial plan to open five taxpayer-funded supermarkets — claiming the $70 million project will create unfair competition for nearby stores, The Post has learned.

As the far-left mayor announced new details of his plan this week — including a 30% discount on basic items like produce, meat, milk, cheese and bread – the Multicultural Business Coalition’s board voted to file a lawsuit in the coming weeks to block the pricey initiative, the group’s chairman Frank Garcia told The Post.

“The mayor doesn’t seem to want to sit down with us,” Garcia said, adding that Mamdani “won’t be able to bully these lawyers we are going to bring in.” …

MBC — formed earlier this year to create a unified front against Mamdani’s grocery policy — includes 50 chambers of commerce representing Asian, African, Caribbean, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Jewish-owned businesses in New York.

Good luck.

I repeat – whether or not you care about New York City, this is a movement that has no plans to limit itself to NYC.]

The post Mamdani’s tax hit list appeared first on The New Neo.

Investigators were probing whether the suspect Raul Morales, 51, was motivated by hate, though Tisch also said “the initial investigation suggests that mental health may have been a factor.”

I don’t doubt both were possibly true: that the perp was indeed motivated by “hate” and that “mental health may have been a factor.” The questions are really legal ones: will this be charged as a hate crime and is there enough craziness to have caused diminished responsibility under the relevant laws? One especially strange element of the stabbings is that the perp yelled the Arabic phrase but does not seem to be either an Arab or a Muslim.

Ah, but not so fast:

[In the shared apartment of Raul Morales] … writings of Marx were found. New York Post reported New York Post reported that two Qurans, a Jehovah’s Witness Bible and a book on Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara were also found.

I suppose he had roommates who might be able to shed some light on things. That article also indicates that he was charged with this: “two counts of second-degree attempted murder as a hate crime and one count each of first-degree assault as a hate crime, second-degree assault as a hate crime, and attempted first-degree assault as a hate crime.” So apparently they’ve decided that yes, “hate” was a motivation.

I’m not keen on “hate crime” as a separate category, by the way – in general, not just for this particular crime. But as I said, I have little doubt that hatred was part of it. There’s an atmosphere of hatred towards Jews in New York, although for this particular perp, who also targeted an Asian person, it doesn’t seem to have just been towards Jews. I’ve noticed that some of these random killings have targeted Asians as well, and that’s been going on for quite some time.

More:

Language in the criminal complaint says that a witness saw Morales near a synagogue West 83rd Street saying “justice for Islam” …

He also has a criminal record for drugs in the 1990s.

Mamdani had a few perfunctory words to say after the crime, but it’s pretty obvious where his own heart is. And it’s not with the victims. His entire stint as mayor so far has featured a subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle fanning the flames of Jew-hatred, and for those inclined in that direction (and/or having mental problems) it acts as a releasor for aggression. See this:

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is a “no room for hate” hypocrite: His obsessive Israel-bashing — and the ravings of his rabid pro-Palestinian besties — encourages antisemitic violence.

Tuesday night, he released an incendiary video repeating (again) a litany of lies about Israeli’s war of self-defense against the Hamas terrorists and urging mass demonstrations when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next comes to town.

Thursday, an attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” stabbed two men — a Jew in a yarmulke and an Asian — on the Upper West Side; the mayor responded with noises about hate and mental illness.

But it’s not generic hate that encourages such targeted bloodshed, however unstable the perp might be: It’s very specific incitement that points the violent at a chosen class of victims.

And in the comments to that article I see something I very often see when such topics are discussed: “Maybe they shouldn’t have voted for him. Crazy, huh?” But the Jews of New York voted overwhelmingly for Cuomo in the primary and in the election as well.

The post Mamdani and violence against Jews in New York appeared first on The New Neo.

Mamdani’s plan is to have DCWP [Department of Consumer and Worker Protection] work with the City Council on new legislation that would stipulate landlords could require either a credit check — paid for by the landlord or broker — or proof that an applicant’s income meets the common 40-times-the-rent standard, but not both. …

The 68-page report laid out an ambitious slate of tenant-focused proposals, including legally recognizing tenant unions, directing HPD to investigate every heat complaint citywide and requiring landlords to disclose any AI-generated or digitally altered images and videos in rental listings so applicants are not misled by doctored apartments.

The report’s ideas came from “Rental Ripoff Hearings” where 2,300 of tenants across the five boroughs detailed housing conditions, fees and landlord practices they wanted City Hall to change.

The idea, as many people have said, is to reach the endpoint of city confiscation of these rental properties. Freeze rents on rent-stabilized apartment and make it almost impossible for landlords to get the money to pay for repairs and all the rest, and then as landlords pull out of the business entirely the city can take over. There seems to be little to no public acknowledgement by the present city administration that landlords are not money fountains, but that the rental business is subject to market forces and landlords have to make money in order to keep apartments in working order.

Oh, and Mamdani has some other plans of the more international variety:

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) says he is reviewing whether his administration could arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his anticipated visit to the city for the U.N. General Assembly this fall.

The mayor made these comments an interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro on Saturday episode of The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast.

“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani said. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court, and what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many, purely because of what his actions have wrought over these past many years.”

No surprise there.

The post And then there’s Mamdani appeared first on The New Neo.

“This is a historic victory for New York City tenants. After reviewing the data and hearing from New Yorkers across the city, the independent RGB has delivered a freeze on one-year leases, and the first-ever freeze on two- year leases in our city’s history. This is the relief that working people across our city deserve.”

And what of the kulaks landlords? Well, they’ll just have to make do somehow, because the laws of economics are suspended as far as the left is concerned:

In plain English, he’s warning that private-sector owners must realize they have no rights to cover their costs, let alone to make a profit.

And oh, by the way, developers shouldn’t even think of building rental units here. The free housing market in New York is dead.

Here’s an idea on how this will work:

New Yorkers living in the city’s 1.1 million market-rate apartments are about to get stuck with the bill for the city’s rent freeze, according to the only member of New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board who is an economist and voted “no” on the freeze.

Arpit Gupta, who was appointed to the board by former Mayor Eric Adams, said landlords will likely jack up rents on market-rate units, as the rent-stabilized market stalls with tenants incentivized to stay put and owners forced to pull vacant units off the market.

“I think of this as trying to breathe with one lung,” said Gupta, an economist and associated professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Ah, but Mamdani has his own lived experience:

What’s worse is as many as 30% of rent-stabilized tenants earn six figures, according to the income data in NYC’s Housing and Vacancy Survey.

Until recently that included Mamdani himself, who lived in a $2,300 Astoria pad despite making $142,000 as a state assemblyman and his family wealth, before he moved into Gracie Mansion in January.

Gupta goes on to point out two things. The first is that the inhabitants of rent-stabilized apartments are not means-tested in any way and that many people in what’s called “market-rate housing” are poor. The second is that the vacancy rate in rent-stabilized housing is already high because it costs money to rehab the units and when landlords can’t recoup those costs by raising rent to cover them, they just take them off the market.

As DSA candidates spread, these sorts of brilliant policies will become more frequent in places other than NYC. Will enough voters catch on in time?

[NOTE: Mamdani has a Fourth of July message for Americans on the 250th birthday of the republic. It’s about what you’d imagine it would be.]

The post The NYC rent freeze appeared first on The New Neo.

That’s the beauty of a deep blue district. Win the primary and you’re in. And what you might imagine of Mamdani’s picks is true: they are fellow “progressive” leftist Democratic Socialists, and are supported by the same voters that liked Mamdani. That group is highly motivated and fed up with incumbents for the most part – a phenomenon similar to the one that propelled AOC into her seat in the beginning of her career:

When campaigning Tuesday, Mamdani said it was not a question of electing more Democrats, it was a question of electing “better Democrats.”

CBS News New York political reporter Marcia Kramer says that in effect, he was tapping into recent a poll finding that New York voters were fed up with politics as usual and were ready to clean house.

The winners will be going to the US House. Then again, even if more moderate Democrats had won the primaries (although “moderate” is a relative word these days), they probably would be voting exactly the same as these far leftists. However, this seems to be the direction of the Democratic Party in safe blue enclaves: to nominate the most radical candidate possible.

In the 13th District, nominee Chevalier “won’t say murderers should go to prison, won’t support deporting illegal immigrant convicted rapists, and won’t condemn Hamas or 10/7.” What’s more, it seems to have been white voters who supported her and black and Hispanic voters who supported her opponent:

Espaillat led w/ older, lower income, Black, & Hispanic voters. “Socialist” Chevalier led w/ younger, college-educ., higher income, i.e. gentrifiers.

In the 10th District, the main difference between the winner and the 2nd-place loser was that the latter was the incumbent, Dan Goldman. Oh, and the winner is anti-Israel:

Lander’s knock-out of two-term Rep. Goldman delivers one of the night’s biggest intraparty upsets. Lander, who enjoyed the backing of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), defeated Goldman in a race that became a proxy battle between the party’s progressive wing and its more establishment faction.

Both candidates are Jewish, so that was not the issue. But Lander said he wanted to join “that fight to end occupation, and apartheid and genocide.”

This is definitely the wave of the future for Democrats. Although they will run less obviously leftist candidates in more purple areas, if such candidates win they will vote with the others.

And what is the plan of the Democratic Socialists? They’ve got one, and it’s nothing less than revolutionary. The left might not be able to win a presidency, but they would like to fix it so that they don’t need to:

Earlier this month, the Democratic Socialists of America’s top leadership met for an in-person meeting of their National Political Committee (NPC), the DSA’s governing authority. The result of the meeting was “Workers Deserve More!”, a rebooted platform for the organization featuring a host of radical proposals. The document commits DSA to scrapping the U.S. Senate, “abolishing the carceral forces of the capitalist state,” defunding the Department of War, amnesty for all immigrants, and “replac[ing] the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.”

As more and more members seek election to local and national positions, the platform represents a clear statement of the DSA’s views. Its radicalism, therefore, gives a glimpse into how the equivalent of the DSA’s board of directors—some of whom have appeared to moderate—actually think about politics.

It’s “our democracy” all right; the sort of thing the Founding Fathers worked so hard to avoid. It is also the fruit of the long Gramscian march through our institutions, especially that of higher education. I suggest you read the whole thing; I may write more about it in a future post.

The post Mamdani’s picks win their primaries in New York appeared first on The New Neo.

The story:

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani won’t be attending the city’s annual Israel Day Parade on Sunday, a break from decades-long tradition, despite attending other events celebrating the city’s diverse cultural landscape.

Since 1964, every mayor in the city has attended the Jewish celebration, which comes amid record levels of antisemitism …

Which his election has aided and abetted.

More:

Mamdani indicated that he would not attend as a matter of political principle. …

Despite his stance against Israel, the mayor has participated in other celebrations, including this year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration, during which he compared the historic plight of the Irish to the “genocide” in Palestine amid Israel’s war with Hamas.

That’s a very popular stance in Ireland itself – the Orwellian confusion/inversion about who’s really seeking genocide, and about who really is the “colonizer.” It’s classic stuff which has caught on tremendously in recent years, as decades of propaganda launched by the USSR (see this), decades of academic indoctrination, recent increases in Muslim immigration to Western countries, constant lies in the MSM, and post-10/7 internet anti-Semitic smears have all combined to create a perfect storm. This has allowed someone like Mamdani to be elected the mayor of New York in the first place.

Israel-haters claim they’re not anti-Semitic, only anti-Israel. “Can’t we even criticize Israel?” they ask disingenuously, because of course they can. Israelis criticize Israel. But when “criticism” is over-the-top Orwellian lies and reversals of the truth, and when similar logic is applied to no other nation on earth – then anti-Israel sentiment is actually Jew-hatred. Mamdani normalizes it, but why would that be surprising, because it originated on the left in Soviet Russia.

In this 2024 post I quoted this article, and that quote bears repeating now:

The claim that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians is among the longest-running lies told about Israel. “Genocide Israeli style”; “Zionist-engineered genocide”; “the ‘final solution’ of the Palestinian question”—these may look like snippets from some recent campus proclamation, but they are not. They appeared in a Soviet pamphlet titled “Zionists Count on Terror.” Published in 1984 by Novosti, a Soviet foreign propaganda arm masquerading as a news agency, this pocket-sized brochure was meant to promote the Soviet view of Israel and Zionism to English-language audiences.

You can read more of the history in this post. Suffice to say the lessons the Soviets taught have been well-learned, and are now rampant among younger Americans and even with some who supposedly used to be on the right (Tucker, I’m talking about you).

Meanwhile, from yesterday:

Jewish New Yorkers, beware.

The same rabid anti-Israel activists who have harassed Jews at synagogues in recent weeks in violent protests, flown the flag of Hamas and Hezbollah and stomped on the Israeli flag are returning to the streets tonight at Time Square in midtown Manhattan to rage-bait Israelis and Jews attending a “Jerusalem Real Estate Expo” at Times Square.

The protest underscores how anti-Israel activist groups are continuing to escalate their pressure campaigns against pro-Israel and Jewish events across the city, despite mounting criticisms of antisemitism. Earlier this week, Jewish and Muslim leaders led a protest at Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s residence at Gracie Mansion, asking that he address the growing antisemitism in the city.

Note that at least some Muslims are against the anti-Jewish anti-Israel harassment. I assume those Muslims will be targeted as well.

More:

Community leaders say these protests put more pressure on Mamdani who joined anti-Israel protests many times before he ran for the mayor’s office. In college, he was a founding member of his school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which also seeks “the return” of Palestinians to modern-day Israel and a one-state solution that claims modern-day Israel for Palestinians, essentially destroying the state of Israel.

Exactly.

And in Brooklyn, there’s trouble in yuppie enclave Park Slope [emphasis mine]:

Israeli-made products were ripped from the shelves of the lefty Park Slope Food Coop just hours after being banned in a historic vote — prompting scores of Jewish shoppers to threaten to quit the member-run market in revolt.

Tuesday’s boycott vote — which drew over 7,000 members and passed with an overwhelming 67% in favor — went into effect immediately, with the Israeli products vanishing from the shelves by Wednesday morning. …

The nasty food fight — over about 10 goods like hummus, herbs, matzo and peanut puffs — drew condemnation from even the most liberal residents in the leafy Brooklyn enclave. …

Coop member Ramon Maislen told The Post that an informal survey prior to the vote suggested up to 1,000 members would leave if the ban passed. The market has about 15,000 members total. …

The controversy has been brewing at the Union Street coop for years, with BDS supporters claiming Israel was committing genocide in Gaza and demanding all products from the country be barred.

Sound familiar? It should.

And this ploy should feel familiar, too [emphasis mine]:

And Tuesday’s vote meeting only compounded the controversy, as it was immediately preceded by a successful vote to lower the threshold required to ban coop products from 75% in favor to 51%.

Without that threshold vote, the ban would not have passed — leaving Jewish members feeling cheated, a feeling which was also reinforced by the alleged lack of public discussion ahead of the final vote.

You may think this is a tempest in a teapot. But it’s not. It’s part of the death of a thousand cuts, proceeding apace in many countries.

The post Mamdani won’t deign to attend the Israel parade in New York: the origin and spread of the “genocide” charge appeared first on The New Neo.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined forces with City Council Speaker Julie Menin to try to squeeze more dough out of Albany — a plea that an increasingly peeved Gov. Kathy Hochul rejected Tuesday.

Hochul was forced to answer questions about forking over more money to help bail out the Big Apple shortly after the lefty Mamdani and moderate Menin called to peel back a tax credit as the city struggles to fill a projected multibillion dollar budget gap.

The governor claimed she was turning the tap off, but political insiders questioned if her stance was firm after she has already appeased the democratic socialist mayor and the “tax the rich” crowd with a new proposed levy on pricey second homes in the city.

And then we have this:

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed tax on luxury second homes in the Big Apple will fall far short of its $500 million goal — and drive wealthy residents out of the city, according to the city comptroller’s office.

City Comptroller Mark Levine found that the proposed policy — framed as a needed revenue booster for the city and state — would likely bring in closer to $340-$380 million, over $100 million less than Hochul and Mamdani have claimed.

Controllers actually have to do math.

More:

The tax — which would apply to secondary homes priced a $5 million or more and follow a sliding scale based on assessed value — would target around 13,000 residences, but the comptroller’s audit warned that revenue estimates move were based heavily on unknown factors.

Many of the pricey pads are rented to tenants by the owners, which may exclude them from the tax, and it was unclear how the levy would treat homes owned by trusts, LLCs, or family members.

The report, released Thursday, also looked at a similar tax implemented in Vancouver, Canada in 2017 — which resulted in nearly 60% of second home owners selling off their properties to avoid the costly fee as of 2025.

The comptroller assumes the city could see a similar scramble to sell homes — estimating an around 10% revenue loss.

Ah, but maybe they’ll institute the brilliant “exit tax” solution – taxing people who sell in order to leave the state. That’ll do wonders to attract a great many new buyers, right?

Hochul really can’t complain. Although her backing came rather late in the game, she endorsed Mamdani in the election.

More:

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin are calling for a new way to tax the rich. They want the state to reduce something called the Pass-Through Equity Tax credit, aka PTET.

“The PTET is essentially a loophole that allows high-income earners to reduce their federal tax burden,” Mamdani said. …

“That’s not happening,” Hochul said. “We are not changing PTET.”

Hochul said she has already found over $4 billion in state aid for the city, and that Mamdani and Menin have a spending problem.

“And we’ve encouraged the speaker and the mayor to do what every other city has to do, [which] is look at your expenses. What is growing exponentially? They have programs that are growing not 4% a year, but 4% [in] months. And so they have to do whatever the other city is doing,” Hochul said.

Socialists don’t believe in cutting expenses, Kathy. They never run out of other people’s money.

NOTE: Mamdani made this this classy move with King Charles:

Mamdani’s eagerness to avoid Charles was clear, his team distancing themselves from the king from the moment the 9/11 ceremony, at the World Trade Center, was announced. “The mayor will not meet privately with King Charles. But the mayor will be at the wreath laying ceremony today,” Joe Calvello, the mayor’s press secretary, said in a terse statement on Wednesday morning.

Charles should count himself lucky, as even the leftist Guardian acknowledges:

It was hardly the treatment Charles is accustomed to, but as the day unfolded it seemed he may have gotten lucky by avoiding a private audience. Asked on Wednesday morning what he would say to Charles if they were to spend time together beyond the ceremony, Mamdani said: “If I was to speak to the king separately from that, I would probably encourage him to return the Koh-i-Noor diamond.”

The 106-carat diamond, which currently sits in the crown worn by the queen mother, has been the subject of an ownership dispute since it came into the possession of Queen Victoria in 1849. Critics say the diamond, which is the size of a hen’s egg, was immorally taken from Duleep Singh, a 10-year-old maharajah whose kingdom was seized by the British.

The post Mamdani is there to make Hochul look moderate appeared first on The New Neo.

“Who can better understand those who weep than those who have been made to weep for so long?” asked Mamdani, referencing his view of the Irish experience in America and comparing it to the plight of the Palestinians.

“The story of the Irish, both in Ireland and in New York City, is at one time a story of oppression, of subjugation, and of discrimination,” the mayor told attendees at the traditional St. Patrick’s Day breakfast at Gracie Mansion.

The special guest of the Mayor at the breakfast was Mary Robinson, former Irish president and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. “Her solidarity is many things: unwavering, sincere, and chief among them Irish,” gushed Mamdani. …

“I say this as over the past few years, as we’ve witnessed a genocide unfold before our eyes, there has been deafening silence from so many,” Mamdani said. “For those who have long cared about universal human rights and the extension of them to Palestinians, silence, however, is nothing new – for Palestinians are so often left to weep alone. Yet former President Robinson has never been silent.”

Robinson has been one of the most controversial High Commissioners for Human Rights in recent memory. She is frequently accused of a disproportionate focus on Israel’s actions while remaining relatively “silent” on human rights abuses by other regimes or Palestinian militant groups. Critics argue she often creates a false equivalence between the actions of a democratic state’s military and the tactics of terrorist organizations like Hamas.

Talk about “disproportionate focus on Israel’s actions” – plus distorted lies about them. Mamdani himself fits the description quite well. Among other things – such as his oft-repeated lie that it is Israel committing genocide when in fact it is Israelis who have been the target of Hamas’ desire for genocide against them – do the Palestinians “weep alone”? I don’t think there’s a people on earth with more MSM coverage for their weeping. The Palestinian people are not very good at many things other than hatred and violence, but propaganda is most definitely one of them.

However, Mamdani wasn’t completely out of line mentioning the Palestinians at the St. Patrick’s Day event, because these days Ireland is one of the most anti-Israel countries in the Western world. I wrote a post about it two years ago entitled, “Why Ireland hates Israel.”

And speaking of people who have wept for so long, there’s this:

The post Mamdani delivered a St. Patrick’s Day message – about the Palestinians appeared first on The New Neo.

The motley crew of capitalist-crushing Democratic mayors includes Chicago’s Brandon Johnson, Boston’s Michelle Wu, Oakland’s Barbara Lee, Seattle’s Katie Wilson and Los Angeles’ Karen Bass.

“Right now, we are the process of forming sort of a mayor’s coalition, much like district and state’s attorneys have formed to fight back against federal overreach,” Johnson said of the socialist sextet.

Mamdani “expressed a desire and commitment to work with the city of Chicago, Boston. We have Seattle on board. We have Oakland, Mayor Lee, Mayor Bass in Los Angeles as well,” added Johnson in a video posted Monday on X. …

“Nothing says ‘terrible idea’ like six cities famous for sky-high taxes and persistent crime deciding the solution is to compare notes,” said Bruce Blakeman, New York’s Republican gubernatorial nominee.

Mamdani’s reps said he’s in regular contact with many other mayors and governors across the country but insisted he’s yet to decide whether to join new coalition.

That would be quite the force multiplier.

One of Mamdani’s recent proposals is this humdinger, just one of many he’s considering:

The socialist mayor wants to drastically slash the estate tax exemption threshold from the $7 million limit to just $750,000, a drop of more than 90%, according to a memo City Hall recently circulated to Albany lawmakers. …

In addition to dropping the estate tax exemption — to what would be the lowest in the US — Mamdani is also pitching increasing the top rate to a whopping 50%, from the current 16%, in what he said would raise $4 billion combined, the outlet reported.

“This is a prime example of how the ‘tax the rich’ movement is actually all about taxing the middle class and those struggling to put food on their tables for their families,” Assemblyman Michael Tannousis (R-Staten Island) told The Post of the proposal.

Staten Island is the only Republican borough of New York, the only one that voted for Trump (about 65% in 2024) and for Mamdani’s opponents (23% for Mamdani). But I would imagine that quite a few people all over New York City who did vote for Mamdani would not be pleased if such changes were ever enacted. Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars does not go very far in New York City.

Of course, many of Mamdani’s supporters have no estates to pass on and probably no hope of having any. Plus, many are young and a long way away from even thinking about leaving to descendants whatever money they do have or ever will have. They might be interested in inheriting their parents’ estates intact, though, if their parents have much of anything and live in New York state. But I think most of Mamdani’s young voters would be only too happy to confiscate the money of others through an estate tax of this magnitude. “From each according to his means, to each according to his needs.”

The post Mamdani and the leftist mayors appeared first on The New Neo.

Meanwhile, Trump has shown remarkable courage, as has Netanyahu. We still don’t know whether their courage will pay off in establishing a new and better Iran, less bent on terrorism and destroying (or taking over) its neighbors, and less oppressive of its citizenry. How could we know? But there’s a chance those good things will result, and if the attack hadn’t been tried, Iran would almost certainly have continued on a terrible trajectory that would not only have been destructive to its own people but potentially destructive to the entire world, particularly Israel and the US but also much of the Middle East and the Western nations.

Now for some news of what’s happened there already.

(1) The report is that Khameini and forty other Iranian leaders are dead. But the death of the Supreme Leader isn’t just a rumor. It has been confirmed by Iranian state media:

The Iranian government announced 40 days of public mourning following the “martyrdom” of the 86-year-old ayatollah, who had ruled Iran for over 36 years.

Khameini was part of the original revolutionary crew of mullahs back in 1979, ruling with a repressive and iron hand.

Aarabi also warned that “eliminating Khamenei in isolation on its own is not enough,” calling for a broader strategy aimed at the wider apparatus surrounding the supreme leader.

“You have to dismantle this extensive apparatus that he has created,” he said.

I am sure that Israel and the US are well aware of that, and are trying to manage it. The question is whether they will succeed. But they are on their way. The IDF says that forty Iranian leaders were killed, and Trump says “a large number.” But this is just the first day; more needs to be done, and much remains to be seen.

Among the officials killed were Iran’s Minister of Defense, Head of Intelligence, and the Supreme Leader’s Advisor for Security Affairs and Secretary of the Defense Council.

“The world is a better place without them,” The IDF wrote on X.

(2) Six people have been killed in retaliatory strikes by Iran in nine countries. I am very sorry about those six people, but considering the efforts Iran has made, the number could have been far greater. Most of the Iranian strikes were stopped by air defense systems.

(3) The UN Secretary-General Gutteres condemned the strikes, saying they were “a grave threat to international peace and security.” Of course he did.

(4) Iranians are dancing in the streets – not just in the US, but in Iran:

Iranians were seen dancing and chanting in the streets Saturday morning in video circulating online after “Operation Epic Fury,” which unleashed strikes targeting Iranian leadership.

“I love Trump!” one student shouted as smoke arose from a nearby building, according to a clip shared on X and reported by The Telegraph.

Other footage showed people dancing in the middle of the road — an act of joy that has been criminalized by the Islamic regime since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Women smiled and twirled as music played and onlookers clapped …

I would assume the great majority of people are staying behind closed doors. But I would also guess that the majority of them are celebrating, too.

(5) Will Iranian terror agents strike in US? They certainly will try, if they can. But there wasn’t much activity after US/Israel strikes in Iran last summer. Let’s hope that they don’t succed at retaliating now.

(6) Mamdani says exactly what you might think he would say, showing he’s both a knave and fool (but you already knew that):

“Today’s military strikes on Iran — carried out by the United States and Israel — mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war. Americans do not want this. They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change. They want relief from the affordability crisis. They want peace,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement. “I am focused on making sure that every New Yorker is safe. I have been in contact with our Police Commissioner and emergency management officials. We are taking proactive steps, including increasing coordination across agencies and enhancing patrols of sensitive locations out of an abundance of caution. Additionally, I want to speak directly to Iranian New Yorkers: you are part of the fabric of this city — you are our neighbors, small business owners, students, artists, workers, and community leaders. You will be safe here.”

As though Iran hasn’t been at war with us for forty-seven years. As though we are carpet-bombing Tehran, a la WWII. I wonder what he considers “sensitive locations” in New York, in need of protection. I bet they’re not synagogues. And the Iranian New Yorkers he says he will protect are probably beside the themselves with joy right now at Khameini’s fall.

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