Tag: democratic socialists

INSANITY: Zohran Mamdani Plans to Tax Companies Even if They LEAVE New York City

One question that keeps coming up about Zohran Mamdani’s socialist fever dream for New York City, is how he is going to pay for all of the free stuff that he’s planning to give away.

This becomes especially complicated when you consider that some wealthy people and companies will flee the city if he becomes mayor.

Mamdani apparently has a plan for that. He is going to try to tax companies even if they leave the city. It’s not exactly clear how he plans to enforce this insane idea.

Townhall reports:

We suppose the silver lining of New York electing an avowed Democratic Socialist as mayor is that we’ll get to see how disastrous his socialist policies really are, and that’ll discourage the rest of the nation from voting for socialism. But we won’t pretend that learning that lesson will be hard, especially for the people of New York who didn’t vote for Mamdani.

In his latest tax-grab scheme, Zohran Mamdani vows to tax businesses that leave New York and, it seems, any company that merely does business in New York, even if they’re headquartered elsewhere.

“So the way that this tax works is it applies to any business doing business here. They could be located in Miami, but if they’re doing business in New York, it applies to them,” Mamdani said.

This policy proposal is insane. So insane, in fact, we don’t even know how to wrap our heads around it. That’s hundreds of thousands of businesses, including international ones.

In what world does any of this make sense?

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Mamdani Leads as Election Day Approaches in High-Stakes NYC Mayoral Race

New York City voters will go to the polls on Nov. 4 to cast their ballots in a three-way mayoral race that could have far-reaching consequences for the city and beyond.

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party nominee who describes himself as a democratic socialist, is heavily favored to win. He faces former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent, and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee known for wearing a red beret.

Previously, sitting New York City Mayor Eric Adams was also running for reelection as an independent, but he dropped out on Sept. 28 and backed Cuomo.

Cuomo has repeatedly called for Sliwa to back out of the race. Sliwa has rejected that demand.

Despite his rivals’ efforts to consolidate opposition to the self-described democratic socialist, polling shows that Mamdani is overwhelmingly favored to win the race in America’s largest metropolis.

Mamdani has led by double-digits in every poll of New York City voters taken since July. He has garnered about 45 percent of the vote in recent polls, compared to about 30 percent for Cuomo and roughly 15 percent for Sliwa.

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3 Reasons Why Zohran Mamdani’s City-Run Grocery Stores Will Fail

New York City Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani says City Hall needs to get into the grocery business because New Yorkers are being “priced out” of private supermarkets. If elected, Mamdani says he’ll spend $60 million on opening one government-run grocery store in each of the five boroughs that would deliver healthier produce at lower prices. Here’s why that’s a terrible idea.

1. Mamdani-Marts Can’t Compete With Discount Grocery Chains

Mamdani says that New Yorkers should think of city-run grocery stores as a “public option” that would deliver cheaper food by saving on rent and taxes. And they wouldn’t need to make a profit.

Except profit margins for grocery stores are typically below 2 percent, and private grocers keep costs down by utilizing complex supply chains and economies of scale that Mamdani’s stores won’t have access to.

“The grocery business is really tough,” says Scott Lincicome, who is the vice president of general economics at the Cato Institute. Private grocery stores provide “a vast variety of fresh frozen produce and other goods that everybody wants all the time, which is actually really difficult to do, particularly at reasonably low prices.” In Kansas City, a government-run grocery store scheme lost nearly $900,000 just last year. 

Lincicome says that if New York politicians want to give their constituents access to cheaper groceries, they could allow Walmart in the Big Apple. But New York politicians have used zoning regulations to keep the nation’s largest and most affordable supermarket from opening a store anywhere in the five boroughs. 

“Walmart is the absolute leader in supply chain efficiencies,” Lincicome told Reason. It “does this via a truly global network of warehouses and trucks and airplanes and all of these amazing things that shave off fractions of a penny off of every transaction.” The idea that New York “could somehow try to replicate Walmart’s global supply chain and entire business model is just laughable.”

2. New York Has Fewer “Food Deserts” Than Any Other City 

Mamdani says his grocery stores will help address the problem of neighborhoods lacking easy access to fresh food. But Lincicome cites a recent study showing that “ranked the Big Apple the No. 1 U.S. metro area in terms of residents’ ‘equitable access’ to a local supermarket.”

“You can basically walk almost everywhere in New York City in 10 minutes and find a grocery store,” he told Reason.

Lincicome cites multiple studies (1, 2, 3) showing that new grocery stores don’t improve food access. But this is old news: In 2012, Reason covered three earlier studies that exploded the myth that adding neighborhood supermarkets improves the diets of their surrounding communities.

3. It’s a waste of money

Mamdani said that he is going to pay for his grocery stores by “redirecting” $140 million worth of city funding that is already being spent subsidizing corporate grocers. As the Washington Examiner’s Timothy Carney was the first to notice, that number is based on a misreading of a city website. The city subsidizes some private grocery stores at a cost of about $3.3 million per year.. As some Bronx residents told Fox News‘ Kennedy in a new video published by Reason, the city should focus instead on helping the homeless, dealing with “rats the size of cats,” and cleaning “all of the needles on the street.”

Direct assistance is a more cost-effective and less destructive way to support low-income households than government-run supermarkets, and it’s something the federal government already does in abundance. Through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, 1.79 million New Yorkers—20 percent of the city’s population—receive help purchasing groceries each month.

As one New Yorker told Kennedy in Reason‘s latest video, “you’re focusing on the wrong things, Mamdani.”

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Zohran Mamdani Brandished Handgun in Music Video—Then Called To Ban Them

As the rapper formerly known as Young Cardamom, Zohran Mamdani donned fatigues and brandished a handgun in a music video for a song glorifying militant violence. As a politician, the socialist has called for a ban on “all guns” to remedy the “scourge of gun violence.”

The video for the 2016 song “Wabula Naawe” is “set in the Luwero Triangle in 1981 during the days leading up to the Ugandan Bush War,” our Jon Levine reports. It “opens with a spray of gunfire” before depicting “armed militants shooting firearms from the back of a truck—to the words ‘let’s get together and settle this thing once and forever.’ It later portrays a man being shot in the head at point-blank range as Mamdani raps lyrics like, ‘I’ll finish you like food on a plate,’ ‘You are about to run like a chicken,’ and, ‘You’ll pray for death.’”

“Mamdani has taken a more critical stance on firearms since entering politics,” writes Levine. As a state assemblyman, he called to “ban all guns” and voted for a bill placing restrictions on firearms marketing. He has since pledged to spearhead a “nationwide ban on assault rifles.”

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Zohran Mamdani’s Mother Says He Is ‘Not an American at All’ in Resurfaced Interview

Zohran Mamdani’s mother, in a resurfaced interview with the Hindustan Times from 2013, said her son is “not an American at all.” She also used terminology that many view as derogatory to the United States.

“He is a total desi,” filmmaker Mira Nair said about her son while he was attending Bowdoin College. “Completely. We are not firangs at all. He is very much us. He is not an Uhmericcan (American) at all. He was born in Uganda, raised between India and America. He is at home in many places. He thinks of himself as a Ugandan and as an Indian.”

In Hindi and Urdu, the word “firang” refers to foreigners, particularly Westerners. But Mehek Cooke, an attorney born in India who now works as a consultant for the GOP, told Fox News the term is not “some harmless cultural term,” but rather a “slur.”

“It’s the word used back in India to mock outsiders, to say you don’t belong,” Cooke said. “Using it here about your own child raised in the United States carries the same tone as calling someone a derogatory word — or worse. It’s flippant, divisive, and dripping with contempt for the very country that gave your family a better life.”

“When Mamdani’s mother says her son was ‘never a firang and only desi,’ it’s a rejection of America. It’s ungrateful, disrespectful, and frankly repulsive to live in this country since age seven, receive every freedom, education, and opportunity America offers, and still deny being American,” she concluded.

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Washington Post: Some Democrats Now ‘Growing Anxious’ About What a Zohran Mamdani Victory Will Mean for Their Party

A new report from the Washington Post claims that some Democrats are getting nervous about what a win for Zohran Mamdani in New York City would mean for their party in the long term. They are not alone.

Even Bill Maher expressed concerns about this on his show last Friday night.

The Democratic Socialist (communist) candidate has very little experience and has promised the moon and more to his loyal supporters. Rank and file Democrats, who have fought the ‘socialist’ label for years, now realize that there will be no escape from that in the future if Mamdani wins and becomes the face of the party.

The Washington Post piece is behind a paywall, but FOX News has some details:

‘Democrats are nervous’ about potential Zohran Mamdani victory, new report warns

A report from The Washington Post Tuesday warned that “Democrats are nervous” about New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, as the 34-year-old democratic socialist’s momentum continues ahead of the election.

“In New York, Zohran Mamdani is on the verge of taking democratic socialism to new heights if he wins election as mayor of the nation’s most populous city,” wrote The Post’s Sabrina Rodriguez. “Outside New York, some Democrats are growing anxious.”

The headline read, “A democratic socialist is poised to become New York mayor. Democrats are nervous.”

The report contains quotes from numerous Democrats expressing their concerns over what Mamdani’s potential win could mean for the Democratic Party’s image and how it could reinforce Republicans’ claims that Democrats aim to usher in socialism.

“It’s one thing for Republicans to use absurd attacks calling Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi socialists to scare voters,” Fernand Amandi, a longtime Democratic strategist, told The Post. “It’s another thing to use an actual socialist to scare voters about the Democrats being the party of socialists, and that’s the concern about Mamdani.”

Mamdani was recently caught in a lie about a family member who was supposedly afraid to ride the NYC subway after 9/11 because of Islamophobia.

He has also worked very hard to erase his own anti-police record, but keeps getting tripped up on that as well.

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Zohran Mamdani’s Fatal Flaw Revealed — and It’s NOT Communism, Socialism or Radical Islam

It’s not your fault. Our country’s entire theory of justice is predicated on proportional penalties — that the “punishment fits the crime.” It’s derived from the Biblical edict of “an eye for an eye” and has been drilled into your head since birth.

So, no wonder it seems weird and counterintuitive when two people commit the same “crime,” and the first guy’s career is absolutely, completely destroyed — his reputation is annihilated and he never works in his field again — but the second guy shakes it off like a bad case of fleas.

You’ve seen it happen repeatedly in music, Hollywood, sports, news/entertainment, and business… but especially in politics. (Just off the top of your head, you’ve probably got half a dozen examples.) 

That’s because our legal system is based on the “punishment fits the crime,” but the court of public opinion is based on something else. And it’s less about the “crime” and more about your personal brand.

More specifically, how the “crime” relates to your brand identity.

Why did Bill Clinton’s approval rating increase during the Monica Lewinsky scandal? Part of the reason was a strong economy. And in a battle of personalities, Bill Clinton was far more likable (and charismatic) than his GOP adversary, Newt Gingrich. 

Those were two important factors.

But the biggest reason — by far — was Bill Clinton’s brand identity: Boinking an intern sure sounded like something Slick Willy would do, so when his DNA was found on Monica’s dress, it didn’t really change how we thought about him.

When Pete Rose died, I wrote that his biggest PR mistake was admitting to gambling. Even though it was 100% obvious he was guilty! Before, his brand identity was based on being a scrappy, hard-working, elbow-throwing, record-setting baseball outcast. 

He was the perfect American antihero.

But then he admitted to gambling in 2004, and his image changed in an instant. He was a liar — a desperate, degenerate liar!

And near-immediately, support for his inclusion in Cooperstown fell off a cliff. The passion of his supporters vanished overnight, and Pete Rose died without ever reaching the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Different brand identities have different vulnerabilities.

Which brings us to Zohran Mamdani, the next mayor of New York City. The ex-governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo — an experienced, savvy politician in his own right — has been hammering Mamdani as hard as he can, focusing on his far-left positions, support of radical Islam, and lack of experience.

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Seattle’s socialist mayoral candidate wants leftist media outlets to be state-funded

Seattle’s socialist mayoral candidate Katie Wilson, who has been nicknamed the “Mini Mamdani,” has raised concerns among critics about conflicts of interest and government overreach, this time over her plan to tax residents to subsidize media outlets that support her campaign and employ her.

In a recent interview on the Mostly Economics podcast, Wilson promoted a proposal she calls “News Notes”: a taxpayer-funded voucher program that would give every Seattle resident $100 to donate to local media outlets, to save failing outlets from the free market. To pay for it, she floated new property taxes, a capital gains tax, or a digital ad tax.

But the outlets she specifically named as beneficiaries, The Urbanist, Publicola, and South Seattle Emerald, are the same ones that routinely promote her political agenda. Many of them have endorsed her. Some have even paid her.

Wilson lists income from The Stranger, The Urbanist, and Publicola in her PDC filings, each below $30,000 annually, while all three also endorse her for mayor. These aren’t neutral newspapers. They’re progressive advocacy media that cheerlead for every new tax, anti-police measure, and socialist policy put forward in Seattle.

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NY Democrats call to ‘fight to abolish ICE’ at Zohran Mamdani rally

New York State Democratic Senator Julia Salazar called for the abolition of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during a campaign rally, and the entire crowd of Democrats agreed. The rally was for NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a controversial socialist currently leading in the polls by 10 points.

Speaking to a packed crowd at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens on Sunday, Salazar yelled behind the microphone: “Is it radical to fight to abolish ICE?” Mamdani’s supporters fired back, responding in unison, “No!” ICE is a federal law enforcement agency tasked with immigration enforcement.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Senator Bernie Sanders, both socialists, also attended the rally, intended to kick off early voting in the Big Apple. Election Day is scheduled for November 4. Many high-profile Democrats have backed Mamdani as well.

AOC, whose district contains portions of Queens and the Bronx, told the crowd that voting for Mamdani “will send a loud message to President Donald Trump that his authoritarianism is no good here.”

Senator Sanders added, “People all over the world are paying attention to what will happen here on Tuesday. These are not normal times…this election takes place at a time when we have a president who has given a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top one percent.”

Mamdani, a 34-year-old current state assemblyman, is running on a socialist platform that includes city-owned grocery stores, rent control, free buses, free childcare, and increasing taxes on the wealthy. He has come under fire for previously failing to condemn the Hamas terror group and for his long history of anti-police rhetoric. He recently leaned into the idea that Muslims were victimized by Islamophobia following the Islamic extremist terror attacks on New York City in 2001.

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Socialist NYC Mayoral Frontrunner Zohran Mamdani Faces Two DOJ Criminal Referrals Over Alleged Foreign Campaign Donations

Far-left New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, a self-described socialist, has been hit with two criminal referrals alleging he accepted illegal foreign campaign donations, a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and New York election law.

The Coolidge Reagan Foundation, a prominent campaign finance watchdog, filed the referrals Tuesday with both the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, demanding a full investigation into a “pattern of foreign money flowing into a New York City mayoral race.”

According to the Fox News, the foundation’s complaint follows revelations that Mamdani’s campaign raked in nearly $13,000 from 170 donors with addresses outside the United States, including one donation reportedly coming from his mother-in-law in Dubai.

“These are not isolated incidents or clerical errors,” said Dan Backer, president of the Coolidge Reagan Foundation.

“This was a sustained pattern of foreign money flowing into a New York City mayoral race which is a clear violation of both federal law and New York City campaign finance rules. Mamdani’s campaign was on notice for months that it was accepting illegal foreign contributions, and yet it did nothing meaningful to stop it.”

The New York Post reported:

The Coolidge Reagan Foundation – which has previously lodged complaints against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee –  urged Bragg and the DOJ to investigate and prosecute Mamdani over the potentially illegal campaign cash, which flowed in from Australia, Turkey, France, Canada, Germany and other countries.

The group argued Mamdani’s campaign has demonstrated a “systematic failure to comply” with campaign finance laws.

Under the Federal Election Campaign Act it is unlawful to “accept or receive” contributions from foreign nationals in any federal, state, or local election.

Violators who knowingly accept foreign donations could face hefty fines and imprisonment.

[…]

While the Mamdani campaign appears to have returned some of the foreign contributions, records show at least 88 donations totalling $7,190 have not been given back.

A spokesperson for the campaign, Dora Pekec, attempted to downplay the allegations, claiming that some of the contributions may have come from Americans living overseas.

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