Categories
ideological culture public opinion

Bad, Worse & Communist

Zohran Mamdani, New York City, corruption, socialism, communism

After four recent commentaries showing, without hyperbole, that Democratic Party mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is a flat-out seize-the-means-of-production communist, you might wonder why anyone could possibly vote for him. 

Well, elections are a choice. And New Yorkers have a plethora of lousy choices — especially the best-known politicians running against Mamdani. 

Take former Governor Andrew Cuomo — puh-leez! He finished second to Mamdani in last month’s Democratic mayoral primary but has vowed to stay in the race on the ballot line of his recently formed Fight & Deliver Party.

The key reason for Mamdani’s victory? Voter revulsion with Mr. Cuomo. After serving ten years as governor and announcing he would seek a fourth four-year term, Cuomo was rocked by sexual harassment allegations (including “attempts to silence victims”). Facing “almost certain removal from office” by the state legislature, he resigned in 2021. 

“To Mr. Cuomo, I have never had to resign in disgrace,” responded Mamdani to Cuomo in a televised debate. “I have never cut Medicaid. I have never stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA [Metropolitan Transportation Authority]. I have never hounded the 13 women who credibly accused me of sexual harassment. I have never sued for their gynecological records. And I have never done those things because I am not you, Mr. Cuomo.” 

Mamdani’s other major opponent is the incumbent, Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted last year on five felony counts, including conspiracy to receive campaign contributions from foreign nationals, soliciting and accepting a bribe, and wire fraud. Though Trump’s Department of Justice dropped the prosecution, or maybe partly because of that, Adams is a pariah among the city’s supermajority of Democratic voters.

The problem is staring us in the face: When the choice is between communism and corruption, communism stands a better chance.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

E.B. White

I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear. Nothing lately has unsettled my party and raised my fears so much as your editorial, on Thanksgiving Day, suggesting that employees should be required to state their beliefs in order to hold their jobs. The idea is inconsistent with our constitutional theory and has been stubbornly opposed by watchful men since the early days of the Republic.

E.B. White, letter to the New York Herald Tribune (November 29, 1947).
Categories
Today

“Malaise”

On July 15, 1976, Jimmy Carter accepted the nomination of the Democratic Party to run for the presidency.

Three years later, as president, he gave his infamous “malaise” speech, in which he focused on energy but did not mention the one thing that actually helped turn the 1970s’ energy crisis around: the phased deregulation of oil prices that had started three months earlier, under his own directive. Instead of touting this deregulatory effort, Carter did the politic thing, promising a number of new government programs while extensively grinding a “crisis of confidence” message and vaguely speaking of a spiritual challenge.

The deregulation was startlingly effective, in the long run — though the immediate effect was a rocketing of prices. These high prices presented profit opportunities, and (lo and behold!) domestic production greatly increased, allowing for many, many years of lower prices. Those high prices would have worked better as market signals had not Carter and Congress also established “windfall profits” taxes, to take away those temporary gains to existing business.

Had Carter deregulated prices earlier, he would probably have been re-elected president. Had he emphasized deregulation, he probably would have beat back Ronald Reagan’s free market rhetoric — with actual action.

The price controls had been put in place earlier in the decade by the Republican president at the time, Richard M. Nixon, with the great help of his aides Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

Categories
education and schooling ideological culture

Ugly Surge

antisemitism, Israel, Palestine, Gaza, education, schools

Is the ugly surge of antisemitism in the United States — whether homegrown or imported or both — now infecting primary school education?

According to a lawsuit filed against a school in Northern Virginia, an 11-year-old girl was subjected to repeated antisemitic harassment after the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel.

The bullying grew worse, the accusation goes further, after the proprietor of the school, Kenneth Nysmith, allegedly hung a Palestinian flag in the school gym.

When the parents complained, Nysmith initially told them that their daughter needed to “toughen up.” Then the student and her two siblings were summarily expelled from the school without prior notice or real explanation.

The suit alleges that the three Jewish children were expelled because their parents had objected to “the school’s unwillingness to respond to anti-Semitic harassment of their 11-year-old daughter. The school had allowed anti-Semitism to take root in her class — in, for example, [a] picture of a social studies class project depicting the attributes of a ‘strong historical leader’” — featuring the face of Adolf Hitler.

Right up there with other strong historical leaders, such as Tamerlane, Joseph Stalin, and Pol Pot.

With allegations so over the top, we probably should proceed with care. But it turns out that the 11-year-old was not the one who first told her parents about how she was being treated. In February, a concerned classmate asked his mother to call one of the parents, Brian Vazquez. “With Mr. Vazquez on speakerphone, the classmate described a disturbing pattern of harassment and bullying.”

The lawsuit calls for an investigation of the school, an order that the school enforce its nondiscrimination policies and eliminate its hostile environment, damages, and other remedies.

We will see how the legal battle proceeds. This is a private school, which has a right to “educate” in its own way. However, the school must follow its own rules.

And, if these allegations are accurate, I hope the school will soon experience another aspect of being private: going out of business. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Elon Musk

If evil people hate you, well, you might be doing something right.

Elon Musk, in conversation with Dr. Jordan Peterson, as shared on X.
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Today

The Bastille Stormed

On July 14, 1789, Paris citizens stormed the Bastille.

The word “storm” in its various forms is almost invariably paired with “Bastille” in discussions of the event. It is one of the great clichés of historical chitchat.

On the same date nine years later, in America, the Sedition Act was signed into law, prohibiting the writing, publishing, or speaking false or malicious statements about the United States government.

The passage of this repressive law spurred the formation of the first opposition party in the United States, with Thomas Jefferson as its leader and figurehead.

Categories
Update

New Report on Last Year’s Assassination Attempt

On July 11, 2025, Paul Jacob covered the suspensions of key Secret Service personnel in “Secret Stupidity?”

The next day, the General Accounting Office (GAO) came out with a new report, revealing “that the Secret Service received classified intelligence regarding a threat to Trump’s life ten days before the rally, but failed to share the information with other key agencies,” explains a FoxNews story.

“It also identified a series of procedural and planning mistakes, including ‘misallocation of resources, lack of training and pervasive communication failures’ that led to the near assassination,” the FoxNews coverage declares.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who ordered the report, blames the failures on “years of mismanagement.” But what else could he say?

Categories
Thought

James A. Garfield

The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people.

James A. Garfield, in a letter to H. N. Eldridge (December 12, 1869) as quoted in Garfield (1978) by Allen Peskin, Ch. 13.

Categories
Today

The Nixon Tapes

On July 13, 1973, the minority (Republican) counsel on the Senate Watergate investigative committee, Donald Sanders, asked Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield if he knew of any recordings made in the Nixon White House, and Butterfield responded, “everything was taped” at least while Nixon was in attendance, and that “there was not so much as a hint that something should not be taped.”

This revelation of the Nixon Tapes transformed the Watergate scandal into a major legal (as well as political) event; with the court-forced disclosure of the tapes, it proved to be one of the most striking examples of “government transparency” in modern times.

Categories
Update

Quit First

On Wednesday, in “The Devil and the Deep Blue Dress,” Paul Jacob dealt with the closing of the Jeffrey Epstein case. Since then, reactions have run the gamut, but there is a persistent theme: disbelief. What President Trump and his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, have told us about Epstein is not widely believed. But what does this mean for those most closely associated with reforming the FBI, Dan Bongino and his boss, Kash Patel?

Well, Laura Loomer made waves on X:

The New Republic tries to place this tweet in context: “It’s important to keep in mind that Loomer has her own agenda when she ‘reports’ on the Trump administration, and is desperate for any job that will keep her in close to the Oval Office.” But the progressive magazine goes on to say that Loomer has exerted no small amount of influence on the Trump Administration in the past.

“Conservatives have taken to social media to back FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino in an apparent falling out between the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) following Attorney General Pam Bondi’s defense of a memo regarding the Epstein files,” explains Newsweek.

“According to a far-left Axios scoop,” the Independent Sentinel tells us, “Dan Bongino took the day off today after a clash with Pam Blondi [sic] over the handling of the Epstein tapes. The dispute erupted Wednesday amid the fallout on the administration walking back its claims about Epstein. They said there was no client list and he committed suicide.”

Kash Patel, Director of the FBI, is also rumored to be thinking of throwing in the towel — but also seeks to put the AG to the curb.

What does this all mean? “Could you imagine you’re Dan Bongino?” asks the host of The Quartering podcast. “And you’re worth like . . . 200 million dollars. You know. F**k it. Just quit…. All he has to do is quit and say ‘I did the best I could; the Deep State is still real.’ You know. That kind of stuff. And then . . . 99% of people will forgive him. I guarantee you that fact.” The podcaster’s belief? The one that quits first will have the least mess on them.

Seems about right.

But nothing has happened yet, and Trump Again/Off-Again Bill Mitchell thinks a whole lot of folks are speculating, not reporting:

Uh, we know who.

Oh, wasn’t it odd to see Ms. Loomer’s put-down of AG Bondi as “Blondi” carry over into the news reports without correction?