Reading this New York Times report on Eric Adams’ dropping out of the race—where Adams is described, with no sense of irony, as “politically moderate” and is quoted as warning against Mamdani’s desire to “destroy the very system we built together over generations” while Cuomo is quoted as saying, “We are facing an existential threat in an extreme radicalism that threatens the existence of this city as we know it”—it dawns on me that we on the left are being presented with a golden opportunity. An opportunity that reminds me, seriously, of something only Lincoln was able to pull off. Zohran Mamdani is running now against Andrew Cuomo, a corrupt sexual harasser, who has been aided from the start by […]
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Categories
Economies, Law, The Left, The Right
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Tags Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Cuomo, Donald Trump, Eric Adams, Greg Grandin, James Oakes, Matt Karp, Zohran Mamdani
I found this a most unbelievable passage, in a New York Times article about why tech and other professionals who are worried about affordability are turning to Mamdani: They ruled out the other candidates for a range of reasons. Some cited concerns about the sexual harassment complaints against Mr. Cuomo and the corruption investigation into Mr. Adams and his administration. The charges against Mr. Adams were dropped, but some in his orbit have remained under investigation. We all know, and the Times itself reported on it intensively and extensively at the time, that the Trump administration dropped the corruption charges against Adams back in February because of a promised quid-pro-quo: if the government dropped the charges, Adams would cooperate with […]
News from the world that Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, are making for us.
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Categories
Economies, Education, Jews, Labor/Workplace, Palestine and Israel, Repression, The Left, The Right
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Tags Andrew Cuomo, Brooklyn College, Eric Adams, John Deere, Lisa Cook, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Northwestern, Zohran Mamdani
Two weeks ago, the New York Times ginned up a controversy over Zohran Mamdani’s college application. In his senior year of high school, Mamdani applied to Columbia University. Asked to identify his race, he checked off the boxes for Asian American and African American. He made a point of specifying that by African American he meant that he was from Uganda. Mamdani’s opponents, most notably Eric Adams, and other commentators immediately used the story against him, claiming that Mamdani was trying to game the affirmative action system of higher ed for his personal advantage by falsely claiming he was Black and Asian American. Peter Beinart has an excellent video out this morning, which puts the story in Mamdani’s family context—and […]
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Categories
Education, Jews, Middle East, Palestine and Israel, The Left, The Right, Violence
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Tags Edmund Burke, Eric Adams, Mahmood Mamdani, Mira Nair, Peter Beinart, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zohran Mamdani
If you haven’t been following the situation in New York City since Saturday, things are getting tense. On Saturday, a gunman shot and killed two police officers at close range in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. The murders come on the heels of weeks of protest in New York (and elsewhere) against the rampant lawlessness and brutality of the police. Instantly, the police and their defenders moved into high gear, blaming the murders on the protesters; NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio, who had been gesturing toward the need for police reform; and US Attorney General Eric Holder. Many have called for the mayor’s resignation. The police union and its head, Patrick Lynch, were the most forthright: “There is blood […]