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New York Post
05-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Why the future of NY under a ‘Mayor Mamdani' has already arrived
If you think a Mayor Mamdani couldn't bring us worse horrors than those already inflicted upon us by the 'progressive' brigade of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, at least a dozen woke City Council members and innumerable looney-left judges — you are profoundly in error. Some of my wealthy acquaintances in high-end commercial real estate say of Mamdani, 'Yes, he's an antisemitic, dopey dilettante who would impose a Soviet-style rule over us if he could, but, hey! The state, not the city, really has the power! The mayor is a paper tiger! Remember how de Blasio said he'd get rid of carriage horses on Day One!' Take no comfort in that. 5 Naysayers repeatedly speculate about the horrors awaiting New York City if Zohran Mamdani is elected. AP It's mercifully true that Mamdani couldn't make the buses free and thereby accelerate the MTA's fiscal tailspin (perhaps he'll have time to learn between now and Election Day that such a step would be up to the MTA, a state body over which the mayor has very limited influence). Nor should his pipe dream of city-run grocery stores panic supermarket and bodega owners, given the city's comically inept and corrupt record with such crucial tasks as making NYCHA apartments liveable. Yet, despite the mayoralty's tightly circumscribed authority, Mamdani could wreak havoc in two realms where significant progress in recent years has been made. The one most vital to New Yorkers on a day-to-day basis is crime. After an up-and-down start, Mayor Adams seems to have tamed the beast. Under NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch, major crime is dramatically down. If the trend holds up, murders this year will total under 300, the holy-grail figure not seen since before the pandemic. Mamdani could undo all of that in a flash. Although he now denies he'd attempt to defund the NYPD despite having once proposed precisely that imbecilic notion, it would take only the appointment of a new top cop more committed to protecting criminals' 'rights' than to public order to kick-start the tailspin. The administrations of Adams, Bill de Blasio (yes, de Blasio) and Bloomberg did their best to alleviate the 'housing crisis.' After all, this is far more the fault of state and earlier city laws than to 'homelessness' largely due to mental illness and drug addiction. 5 Mamdani wants to make public transport free, along with taking an anti-police platform. Christopher Sadowski All three mayors promoted or approved rezonings that both opened up more districts to residential development, and enabled construction of 'affordable' units within those districts — the latter by requiring their inclusion for the size bonuses developers need to make projects economically viable. For elected officials and urbanologists who apparently prefer a North Korea-style housing program (free, government-assigned apartments for everyone in horrible buildings), no amount or percentage of affordable units is ever enough. But Bloomberg, de Blasio and Adams, in different ways, relied on a real-world approach. 5 A 'Mayor' Mamdani would have the power to replace newish NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who has made inroads against violent crime. Luiz Rampelotto/ZUMA / Variances to existing rules needed approvals under the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP. The often contentious, seven-month slog sometimes included compromises, but the result was creation of tens of thousands of new units from the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn to Morris Park in The Bronx. Kiss such progress goodbye if Mamdani wins. His animus toward upper- and middle-class New Yorkers is well known. The loyalties of a man who wants to freeze all stabilized rents clearly are not with developers and landlords upon whom the city must rely to create and maintain sound housing. 5 Former council member Kristin Richardson Jordan, who took an anti-development and anti-'gentrification' stance, derailed a large-scale Harlem housing development that would have delivered low-cost homes to her district. LightRocket via Getty Images He'd more likely take his cue from anti-development and anti-'gentrification' zealots such as former council member Kristin Richardson Jordan, who single-handedly torpedoed a big Harlem project that would have brought 1,000 new rental homes to Malcolm X Boulevard and West 145th Street, half of which were to be priced below market. The ability of a single council member to block even projects supported by his or her entire community — a veto power called 'member deference' — has been so abused, Adams wants to put measures on the November ballot that would turn approval authority over to the City Planning Commission. 5 The site under consideration was — and remains — an empty lot. Stephen Yang Yet, even if voters show more common sense than Democratic primary voters last week and support the change, a mayor Mamdani could still — and almost surely will — stop any housing development in its tracks that doesn't impossibly make new apartments free or almost free. That's because ultimately, the mayor must sign off on any plan that passes ULURP muster. If you doubt he'd put the kibosh on new-housing proposals desired by just about everybody, just listen to him — and tremble. scuozzo@
New York Post
05-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Iran regime cracks down on its own people with a ‘North Korea-style model' of ‘terrifying' repression
In the wake of the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, the regime appears to be turning inward — escalating repression with chilling speed. According to Kasra Aarabi, director of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran, the Islamic Republic is accelerating toward what he said is a 'North Korea-style model of isolation and control.' 'We're witnessing a kind of domestic isolation that will have major consequences for the Iranian people,' Aarabi told Fox News Digital. 'The regime has always been totalitarian, but the level of suppression now is unprecedented. It's unlike anything we've seen before.' A source inside Iran confirmed to Fox News Digital that 'the repression has become terrifying.' Aarabi, who maintains direct lines of contact in Iran, described a country under siege by its own rulers. In Tehran, he described how citizens are stopped at random, their phones confiscated and searched. 'If you have content deemed pro-Israel or mocking the regime, you disappear,' he said. 'People are now leaving their phones at home or deleting everything before they step outside.' 3 The Iranian regime is heading down a pathway similar to the leadership style of North Korea in the wake of the Israel-Iran conflict. AP This new wave of paranoia and fear, he explained, mirrors tactics seen in North Korea — where citizens vanish without explanation and information is tightly controlled. During the recent conflict, Iran's leadership imposed a total internet blackout to isolate the population, blocking Israeli evacuation alerts, and pushed propaganda that framed Israel as targeting civilians indiscriminately. 'It was a perverse objective,' Aarabi said, adding, 'They deliberately cut communications to instill fear and manipulate public perception. For four days, not a single message went through. Even Israeli evacuation alerts didn't reach their targets.' The regime's aim, he said, was twofold: to keep people off the streets and erode the surprising bond that had formed between Iranians and Israelis. 'At the start of the war, many Iranians welcomed the strikes,' Aarabi noted. 3 In North Korea, citizens can vanish without explanation. KCNA VIA KNS/AFP via Getty Images 'They knew Israel was targeting the IRGC — the very forces responsible for suppressing and killing their own people. But once the internet was cut and fear set in, some began to question what was happening.' Dr. Afshon Ostovar, a leading Iran scholar and author of 'Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran's Revolutionary Guards,' said domestic repression remains the regime's most reliable strategy for survival. 'Repressing the people at home is easy. That's something they can do. So it's not unlikely that Iran could become more insular, more autocratic, more repressive — and more similar to, let's say, a North Korea — than what it is today. That might be the only way they see to preserve the regime: by really tightening the screws on the Iranian people, to ensure that the Iranian population doesn't try to rise up and topple the regime,' he told Fox News Digital. Inside the regime's power structure, the fallout from the war is just as severe. Aarabi said that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is facing an internal crisis of trust and an imminent purge. 'These operations couldn't have taken place without infiltration at the highest levels,' he said. 'There's immense pressure now to clean house.' 3 Kasra Aarabi, director of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran, said the country is heading towards a 'North Korea-style model of isolation and control.' KCNA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock The next generation of IRGC officers — those who joined after 2000 — are younger, more radical and deeply indoctrinated. Over half of their training is now ideological. Keep up with today's most important news Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters Aarabi said that these newer factions have begun turning on senior commanders, accusing them of being too soft on Israel or even collaborating with Mossad. 'In a twist of irony, Khamenei created these extreme ideological ranks to consolidate power — and now they're more radical than he is,' Aarabi said. 'He's struggling to control them.' A purge is likely, along with the rise of younger, less experienced commanders with far higher risk tolerance — a shift that could make the IRGC more volatile both domestically and internationally. With Iran's conventional military doctrine in ruins, terrorism may become its primary lever of influence. 'The regime's three pillars — militias, ballistic missiles, and its nuclear program — have all been decapitated or severely degraded,' Aarabi said. 'That leaves only asymmetric warfare: soft-target terrorism with plausible deniability.' Despite the regime's brutal turn inward, Aarabi insists this is a sign of weakness, not strength. 'If the Islamic Republic were confident, it wouldn't need to crush its people this way,' he said. 'It's acting out of fear. But until the regime's suppressive apparatus is dismantled, the streets will remain silent — and regime change remains unlikely.'
Kuwait Times
22-06-2025
- Politics
- Kuwait Times
US strikes on Iran nuclear sites are real-life test of hard power's limits
North Korea-style race for bomb is one possible scenario VIENNA: US military strikes overnight in which President Donald Trump said Iran's main nuclear sites were 'obliterated' will put to the test the widely held view that such attacks can delay a nuclear program but not kill a determined push for atom bombs. As Iran's nuclear program has expanded and become more sophisticated over the past two decades, many officials and nuclear experts have warned: You can destroy or disable a nuclear program's physical infrastructure but it is very hard or impossible to eliminate the knowledge a country has acquired. Western powers including the United States have publicly suggested as much, complaining of the 'irreversible knowledge gain' Iran has made by carrying out activities they object to. 'Military strikes alone cannot destroy Iran's extensive nuclear knowledge,' the Washington-based Arms Control Association said in a statement after the US strikes with massive bunker-busting bombs on sites including Iran's two main underground enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow. 'The strikes will set Iran's program back, but at the cost of strengthening Tehran's resolve to reconstitute its sensitive nuclear activities, possibly prompting it to consider withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and possibly proceeding to weaponization.' Zionist entity has also said it has killed Iranian nuclear scientists but, while little is known about the personnel side of Iran's nuclear program, officials have said they are sceptical about that having a serious impact on Iran's nuclear knowledge, even if it might slow progress in the near term. The West says there is no civilian justification for Iran's enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade fissile purity. Iran says its nuclear objectives are solely peaceful and it has the right to enrich as much as it wants. Iran's nuclear program has made rapid advances since Trump pulled the United States out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers that placed strict limits on its atomic activities in exchange for sanctions relief. After the US withdrawal in 2018 and the re-imposition of US sanctions, Iran pushed past and then far beyond the limits imposed by the deal on items like the purity to which it can enrich uranium and how much it can stockpile. At least until Zionist entity's first strikes against its enrichment installations on June 13, Iran was refining uranium to up to 60 percent purity, a short step from the roughly 90 percent that is bomb-grade, and far higher than the 3.67 percent cap imposed by the 2015 deal, which Iran respected until the year after Trump pulled out. The last report on May 31 by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog that inspects Iran's nuclear facilities, showed Iran had enough uranium enriched to up to 60 percent, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. It has more at lower levels like 20 percent and 5 percent. The exact impact of Zionist and US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and materials has yet to be determined. In addition to the enrichment sites, the US struck Isfahan, where officials have said much of Iran's most highly enriched uranium stock was stored underground. One important open question is how much highly enriched uranium Iran still has and whether it is all accounted for. A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow, the site producing the bulk of Iran's uranium refined to up to 60 percent, had been moved to an undisclosed location before the US attack there. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told state TV last weekend Iran would take measures to protect nuclear materials and equipment that would not be reported to the IAEA, and it would no longer cooperate with the IAEA as before. The IAEA has not been able to carry out inspections in Iran since the first Zionist airstrikes nine days ago, but has said it is in contact with the Iranian authorities. What Iran will do next in terms of its nuclear program is also unclear. Its threat to pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty hints at a race for nuclear weapons, but Iran has maintained it has no intention of doing so. The only other country to announce its withdrawal from the NPT is North Korea in 2003. It expelled IAEA inspectors and went on to test nuclear weapons. 'Our biggest concern is that we end up with a North Korea scenario whereby these strikes convince the Iranians that the only way to save the regime is to go for the bomb. Nobody is bombing North Korea now, are they?' a European official said. Even if inspections continue, because of Trump's withdrawal in 2018 Iran had already scrapped extra IAEA oversight provided for by the 2015 deal. That means the agency no longer knows how many centrifuges Iran has at undeclared locations. The IAEA says that while it cannot guarantee Iran's aims are entirely peaceful, it also has no credible indication of a coordinated nuclear weapons program. The Zionist and now US strikes have already raised fears among diplomats and other officials, however, that Iran will use those centrifuges to set up a secret enrichment site, since one could be built inside a relatively small and inconspicuous building like a warehouse. 'It is quite possible that there are enrichment sites that we don't know about. Iran is a big country,' a Western official said, while adding that Iran could also choose to bide its time. 'In two years, if Iran were to start from scratch, they would only need a few months to reconstitute a new program and to get back to where they were yesterday.' — Reuters
Yahoo
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Hosts $45 Million Military Parade For Himself Before Underwhelming Crowd
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump finally got his North Korea-style military parade for his birthday Saturday, which featured tanks and rocket launchers rolling down the streets of the capital city before smaller-than-expected crowds. 'Every other country celebrates their victories, it's about time America did too,' Trump said in a brief, eight-minute speech. It followed the two-hour parade down Constitution Avenue, during which Trump primarily sat, appeared bored, but occasionally stood to salute the passing troops and military hardware. Trump and his administration have claimed that the parade was actually to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Army's founding by the Continental Congress in 1775, not Trump's 79th. It's unclear whether the Navy and the Marine Corps, branches also founded in 1775, will similarly get $45 million parades this year. Neither Trump nor the Pentagon has mentioned any such plans. What's more, preceding Trump at the lectern, Vice President JD Vance described Trump's coming remarks as 'the main event' of the evening. Despite Trump's attempts to hype the event, attendance appeared light — there were considerably fewer people on the National Mall on Saturday than there would be for a typical Fourth of July celebration. And attendance at Trump's parade was dwarfed by the millions who showed up at roughly 2,000 anti-Trump 'No Kings' protests in cities and towns all over the country. Trump spoke less than 1,000 feet away from the spot he delivered a speech that riled up tens of thousands of his supporters he had called to the city on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump told them to march on the Capitol to intimidate his own vice president into awarding him a second term, even though he had lost the 2020 election. More than 140 police were assaulted by Trump's mob, with one dying hours later and four others dying from suicide in the coming weeks and months. Trump, who avoided military service during the Vietnam War thanks to a doctor's note diagnosing him with 'bone spurs,' has wanted a military parade since he took office. His transition team before his first term tried to have tanks and other military equipment for his inaugural parade, 'Red Square/North Korea-style,' according to a source. But, the Pentagon was able to nix the idea, citing the authoritarian optics as well as the likely damage to Washington, D.C.'s streets from tanks that weigh 75 tons and roll on steel treads. He tried again two years into office for the Fourth of July, but backed off. The vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time reportedly told Trump that a military parade was 'what dictators do,' while leaked cost estimates in the tens of millions of dollars persuaded Trump to accept a rally speech with military equipment parked in front of him instead. After returning to office despite his attempted self-coup and the criminal prosecutions it triggered, though, Trump did not back away from his desire for a military parade this time.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ben Shapiro is cracking under the pressure to shill for Trump
No one was more relieved than Daily Wire commentator Ben Shapiro when Donald Trump announced a 90-day 'pause' on Chinese tariffs. Scare quotes around 'pause,' because there will still be a 30% tariff on Chinese goods, which economist Paul Krugman characterized as 'really, really high.' But Shapiro has been getting a lot of grief in recent days from his audience for ever-so-slightly acknowledging a reality everyone outside the MAGA bubble can see: Trump's tariff impulses — which hardly rise to the level of 'policy' — are both stupid and dangerous. The first rule of MAGA is, 'Trump is never, ever wrong.' Understanding this, Shapiro tried to avoid blaming the president for his own decisions, instead focusing his ire on White House advisor Peter Navarro. Calling Navarro 'a dotard and a fool' for supporting tariffs, Shapiro begged Trump to fire his beloved yes-man. Shapiro initially aimed his criticism directly at Trump himself, only to be overwhelmed with blowback from the audience. But even the MAGA-blind can see Shapiro's 'dotard and fool' characterization better suits Trump than Navarro, so the anger at Shapiro for saying something true wasn't dissipating. Shapiro is smart enough to know that a 30% tariff is still wildly inflationary, but he caved to pressure to return to the North Korea-style praise of Trump as the ultimate genius. 'Trump's great strength? He lives in a world of results,' Shapiro gushed after the "concept of a plan" was announced. 'When a policy doesn't deliver, he adjusts.' This still wasn't enough slobber for his audience, however. 'He didn't adjust, that was the plan all along,' one fantasized in comments. Another accused Shapiro of having brain damage from vaccines. Shapiro is one of the most prominent and frankly hilarious examples, but his dilemma is felt throughout the massive world of professional Trump apologists. Even for people who have years of practice declaring Trump a 'genius' while he prattles on about bleach injections or pet-eating immigrants, it's getting harder to feign ignorance about basic realities. That's especially true when Trump's actions, as with this pointless trade war, are so politically toxic they threaten the longevity of the MAGA movement. Trump has surrounded himself with flatterers who keep their position by only telling the boss that his every move is the smartest choice ever made. The only possible source for constructive criticism the narcissist-in-chief might hear is from the right-wing press — but they're hamstrung by audiences who don't want to listen to it, barely had a chance to release posts and videos praising Trump for his infinite wisdom for temporarily rolling back some of the stupidest economic policies in American history, before Trump made another decision that is nigh-impossible for even his biggest boot-lickers to defend: accepting a $400 million bribe from Qatar's royal family, in the form of a highly photographable super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet known as the "flying palace." Especially since Trump defended his acceptance of this "gift" by insisting that only "a stupid person" would think that there might be strings attached. Even people with MAGA-decimated cognitive abilities can grasp that the opposite is true and that no one offers such a showy present without expecting something unpleasant in return. It's an especially tough look for Trump mere days after he went on the lecture circuit, scolding American children for wanting more than their allotted "two dolls," explaining that a miserly toy collection is a necessary sacrifice for the president's mysterious economic agenda. (So mysterious that he doesn't even seem to know what his goals are!) The news of Trump's luxury aircraft also coincides with an explosion of horror stories of air traffic failures and delays, which is exactly the sort of disaster that was predicted when Trump unleashed Elon Musk on federal workers, firing and bullying thousands from their jobs — including 400 crucial workers for the Federal Aviation Administration. Shapiro gets that it's a bad look for Trump to be kicking it on the world's fanciest airplane, as the voters watch endless news reels about his fancy new jet while they get morosely drunk waiting for their flight reports at an airport bar. So, even though he's already on eggshells with his snappish fanbase, Shapiro waded into Trump criticism again on Monday. "Define 'America first' in a way that says you should take sacks of cash from the Qatari royals," he complained on his show. "If you want President Trump to succeed, this kind of skeezy stuff needs to stop," he demanded, adding that it's already having a political impact. Shapiro isn't speaking truth out of the goodness of his heart, the existence of which is still debatable. He's very clear that his concern is the future of the MAGA movement. It may be that he understands better than his followers how fascism is not inevitable. His own company has been quietly struggling in recent months. In March, Will Sommer of The Bulwark reported that the Daily Wire CEO, Jeremy Boreing, had abruptly stepped down. The Daily Wire "has been bleeding talent," Sommer reports, and they seem to have flushed unseemly amounts of cash down the toilet on "Boreing's 25-year passion project to film a book series about King Arthur," which now looks like it will never be finished. Shortly after Boreing was let go, the Daily Wire was hit with layoffs, a relatively rare event in the right-wing media world that is buoyed by cash infusions from far-right billionaires. But the gravy train of MAGA media depends on the viability of their political movement. Trump is threatening their futures by inflicting needless economic damage. The pitch for fascism is that voters can trade off human rights for prosperity. It was always a lie. Autocratic governments tend to underperform healthy democracies on economic metrics, precisely because corrupt leaders drain public coffers to benefit themselves. But Trump's speed and flash with his destructive agenda could sink the fascist ship before it even sets sail. Shapiro isn't the only MAGA media star who is worried that Trump's greed could destroy their fragile power base. Even Laura Loomer, one of the nuttier figures with real sway over Trump's addled mind, is griping that the Qatar plane is a bad look (though, as usual, she has racist reasons for her calculations). Shapiro's dilemma reflects a tension that is increasingly untenable for much of the right-wing media, including Fox News. They make a handsome living by telling Trump voters soothing lies, about how they were always right and the liberals were always wrong and Trump is actually a genius. It's an evil job, but undeniably has some difficulties, especially for those who haven't killed the lingering conscience telling them that lying is bad. But now the problem isn't just moral decay. There are increasing demands to make excuses for behavior so stupid that the rest of the GOP should consider it political malfeasance. Keeping the MAGA movement going may mean saving Trump from himself, but that's impossible to do when your central message is that Dear Leader can do no wrong. Here's hoping the cracks start showing from the pressure.
