Settler-Colonialist Zohran Mamdani Calls For "Seizing The Means Of Production"

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  • Last week I invited readers to get a good laugh out of New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s plan to avert impending energy disaster by green-lighting one nuclear power plant that optimistically might solve 5% of the problem when it is ready to operate in the 2050s.

  • Now this week brings an even superior farce: A video clip has emerged of our settler-colonialist Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani calling for “seizing the means of production.”

  • Mamdani’s victory in last week’s Democratic primary has led researchers to dredge up a treasure trove of his old tweets and video clips, each one more ridiculous than the next. An excellent roundup can be found here at Legal Insurrection.

  • Some choice examples include: “VioIence is an artificial construct"; “Under capitalism, housing is a commodity from which landlords & developers extract huge profits while our communities suffer eviction, foreclosure & displacement.”; “We need to dramatically curtail the power & presence of the NYPD.”; and “[A] statue of Columbus remains in Astoria, in defiance of the values of humanity, empathy & justice that we stand for.”

  • But my favorite is a clip from a speech Mamdani gave at a Democratic Socialists of America conference in 2021.

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Zohran Mamdani And The Future Of The Democratic Party

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  • OK, I know that all you smug people out there in the hinterlands are now snickering at me behind my back because I’m about to get stuck with one Zohran Mamdani as the Mayor of my city.

  • Probably, you have already read enough about this guy to know just how crazy and ignorant he is. If you haven’t yet studied up, here is a small sample of his stated positions: free transit buses for all, free childcare for all children 6 weeks to 5 years old, city-owned grocery stores, a rent freeze on all regulated apartments, vast expansion of city-owned subsidized housing (building on the success of NYCHA!), “cracking down” on landlords, plus some kind of a mental health intervention corps to intervene with violent criminals in lieu of police, all of this to be paid for by “taxes on big corporations and the wealthiest New Yorkers.” And of course, “globalize the intifada.” This guy founded the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Bowdoin College.

  • And don’t get the idea that he doesn’t mean it.

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Good Laugh For Today: New York State Says It Will Build A New Nuclear Power Plant

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Good Laugh For Today: New York State Says It Will Build A New Nuclear Power Plant
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New York/Florida Comparison: The Contrast Becomes Ever More Dramatic

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  • Among the larger states, the two that are closest to each other in population and demographics are New York and Florida.

  • According to the latest U.S. Census data (from July 1, 2024), the population of New York was 19,867,248, while the population of Florida was 23,372,215. More recent estimates from a source called World Population Review put New York’s 2025 population at 19,997,100 (an increase of about 130,000 on the year), and Florida’s at 23,839,600 (an increase of about 467,000 over the same year).

  • Yet in terms of the approach to state government — taxing, spending, and government programs overall — there could not be a greater contrast than between these two states. And that contrast only grows stronger every year.

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Perhaps Rube Goldberg Can Fix The Woes Of the New York City Housing Authority

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Perhaps Rube Goldberg Can Fix The Woes Of the New York City Housing Authority

  • Over the years I have returned repeatedly to the subject of the New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA.

  • Begun with great optimism prior to World War II, NYCHA expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 70s, until it housed around 500,000 people. The economic model was always pure unmodified socialism — the government owns everything, rents are tied to income (“to each according to his needs”), and any shortfalls in paying costs fall on the taxpayers. But after all, we will save oodles of money because there will be no profits for the evil developers. For a few of my prior posts, see here, here and here

  • The socialist economic model always lacked any mechanism to renew the capital investment in the buildings as they aged. After 2000, buildings were turning 30, 40 and even 50 years old.

  • Beginning in the 2010s, NYCHA started regularly announcing large sums of money that it claimed it needed urgently for major repairs to these buildings.

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Can Anyone Save New York From Its Coming Self-Inflicted Climate and Energy Disaster?

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  • New York State has officially ordained the destruction of its electricity system and its economy with a mad dash to energy utopia, as prescribed by a 2019 statute called the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act). The Climate Act mandates a completely unachievable 70% of electricity generation from “renewables” by 2030, with even more draconian mandates following in quick succession thereafter.

  • New York City has piled on with its own fantasy energy statute called Local Law 97, mandating, among other things, forced conversion to electric heat by 2030 of most residential buildings over 25,000 square feet.

  • A so-called “Scoping Plan” on how to do all this, issued by the State in 2022, contains no bona fide feasibility analysis, and equally no bona fide cost analysis.

  • Everybody with over a sixth-grade education who has taken any time to look at this knows that it can’t possibly work. The only question is how much destruction will befall us before the whole thing crashes to the ground.

  • Can anyone save New York from the coming self-inflicted climate and energy disaster?

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