The Dorks of York

Bad Day for New York and the Yorks Over in Britain

The United States has a unique pattern in its politics where a total political unknown falls suddenly out of the sky and with no experience and no credentials nabs a very high office, as crowds of people cheer. Obama was one of these guys. So was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), a bartender who was as surprised as anyone when she won a seat in the House of Representatives. And now we have Zohran Mamdani.

Zohran Mamdani

Although he declares himself to be a Democratic Socialist, this next mayor of New York City has used social media to claim that capitalism is theft, which sounds a little more communist than socialist to me. But as Ayn Rand once said, “There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.”

Mamdani is young, photogenic, and charismatic (starting to see a pattern—AOC and Barack share this same playbook). He’s so young and utterly inexperienced that his interviews have to go back to the time he ran for class president in high school. At his high school, he promised his classmates fresh juice, but he had no way to deliver on the promise. Hmm, sounds prophetic. However, his high school was smarter than the voters of New York City and they defeated him.

Zohran is the son of privilege. His mother is celebrated Indian filmmaker Mira Nair and his father is Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani. Zohran was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda, and moved to New York City with his family when he was seven. He became a naturalized US citizen in 2018. When he got married this year, he had the festivities at his families “private compound” in Uganda.

Having a large, gated, guarded “compound” with an electronic jamming system does not sound inspiring to me for this nouveau champion of the proletariat. And Uganda has no bilateral extradition treaty with the United States, so if things go south, Mamdani has a hideout. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This was in many ways a vanity campaign—lots of style and swagger, no real tangible policies. Of course, Zohran has promised a lot of fresh juice—free public transportation, higher taxes for the rich, taxing people even if they moved out of New York, free government-run grocery stores, rent freezes, affordable living, solutions to homelessness and mental health care, and an all-round better city. He says violence is a “social construct” (only someone who never got punched in the nose can say that) and he has walked back his 2020 defund-the-police social media posts. Sort of.

The problem is these are ideas, not plans.

• Zohran is going to raise taxes on the rich. I’m not sure he knows this, but mayors do not have that power and I’m not sure Governor Hochhul is on board

• Zohran is allowed to propose that New York state raise taxes, but, then again, so am I

• Zohran wants to make public transportation free but to do that he needs more tax revenue (see first bullet)

• Zohran wants to freeze rent in rent-stabilized apartments but he’ll need political allies to get that through the City Council and the real estate moguls of New York City are like the nephilim in the Bible—scary and they really do exist

• Zohran has promised to set up free grocery stores in the city, but he may not realize that this same thing was done recently in Kansas City and failed

• Zohran has promised free child care in New York City and he could do that—but he needs the money, about $6B a year (see first bullet)

• Zohran wants the city’s minimum wage to be $30/hour by 2030. As a mayor, he cannot set a city-specific minimum wage unless he goes to Albany, wrests that power from Hochhul, and then pushes it through the New York City Council

What does this mean? Some Republicans are cheering saying they welcome this big glass of fresh juice from Mamdani because he—and his progressives—will lose face, credibility, and (most importantly) voters when they fail to deliver.

By the way, Mamdani (a Muslim) has also publicly promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes if he ever stepped foot in New York City. This underscores his political stupidity. True, there are people who want Netanyahu arrested and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. But that doesn’t mean Zohran can just arrest him.

• The American Service Members Protection Act, a federal law, limits the ability of U.S. government officials from cooperating with the ICC. It doesn’t mean we hate the ICC, just that our government agents are not authorized to act on behalf of the ICC

• Should Zohran try to arrest Netanyahu in New York, Zohran will be breaking the law and Netanyahu won’t. Ironic, huh?

• Added to that: whenever Netanyahu comes to the United States, he is afforded diplomatic immunity as the head of a foreign nation. Some upstart mayor—no matter how photogenic he is—can’t arrest diplomats

Will New York collapse? I suppose eventually, the only question is the timing. New Yorkers are tough people, but politically stupid. Zohran Mamdani could be just what the doctor ordered to wise some of them up.

Andrew, Formerly Known as Prince

The United Kingdom has two stalwart groups of patriots: there are the monarchists who support having to support kings and queens and their various spouses and relatives and there are the republicans who perceive all of this as anachronistic nonsense. Regardless of where the people of the United Kingdom fall, the monarchy is marching perilously close to collapse. All this royal stuff is expensive, for one thing. The monarchy is overpopulated by boors, perverts, dimwits, criminals, and perhaps a few decent souls. It serves no modern purpose.

And nobody is more aware of this than Prince William.

King Charles III recently removed the title of Prince and Duke from his brother, Andrew. This was rather startling since some of us didn’t know he had that power and those of us who knew he had the power didn’t think he had the gumption.

Andrew was born the third child of Prince Phillip and Queen Elizabeth and had the title (the Brits call this a “style”) of Prince from birth. He was also made the Duke of York and his former wife, Sarah Ferguson, was the Duchess of York. He has medals and honors and titles and no small amount of money. Up until five minutes ago, he lived in the massive palace known as Royal Lodge—much larger accommodations than Prince William and his wife expect to have when they move to Windsor in anticipation of his ascension to the throne.

Removing the title is a humiliation that Andrew probably never expected. Andrew is now just Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. He’s even been removed from the royal website. If my understanding of royal protocol is correct, he must now bow before his two young daughters (whose titles were not removed). He has had to move out of Royal Lodge. It is expected that he will soon move to the United Arab Emirates where some rich guy has gifted him a palace.

Andrew was punished for his involvement in a multitude of scandals. They’re all about sex and money. But this guy can outpace Hunter Biden in sheer grift.

• Epstein Island, where Andrew and Sarah were frequent guests

• Close affiliations with Ghislaine Maxwell who visited Andrew at the palace frequently and is rumored to be the only non-royal who did not have to go through security checkpoints there

• Lying about when their relationship with Epstein began and ended (it was much longer than they admitted)

• Staying at the Epstein house in New York

• The publication of Nobody’s Girl by the late Virginia Roberts Guiffre detailing human trafficking and the Yorks’ involvement

• Andrew having reached a confidential settlement with Guiffre before she died; her will was recently read and it appears Andrew made a settlement offer which was accepted—but which he never paid

• Dubious dealings when he was trade envoy

• An undercover sting operation which caught Sarah trying to sell access to then-Prince Andrew for $700,000 (they got caught, she apologized, nothing was done)

• Andrew and Sarah caught in sexual affairs, not with each other

• Andrew’s multiple meetings with Yang Tengbo, a Chinese spy

• Revelations of how Andrew bilked taxpayers by taking trips as a trade envoy and then running around with prostitutes. The best substantiated accusation (by royal historian Andrew Lownie) is that Andrew used tax money to spend four days in a five-star hotel in Thailand—and utilized the services of 40 prostitutes at that time—which the British taxpayers bought for him

So why—after a lifetime of bad behavior, scandals, hookers, human trafficking, and graft—does Andrew get the boot now? And he will get the boot—I predict he will wind up in exile somewhere and sooner rather than later.

I think we are on the cusp of a transition in Britain. King Charles III will not likely be king much longer. He has a terminal illness and whispered reports are that he is much frailer than the press reports. The monarchy—in whatever form it still exists—will soon be passed on to his son William.

William is definitely a monarchist.

But to hold on to what the royal family euphemistically calls “the firm,” William must streamline things and trim the expenses. William and his wife Catherine are planning to move to a palace for their reign that is downright austere when compared to Buckingham Palace. Jaunts to a pedo island, 40 taxpayer-funded hookers in a hotel, and Chinese spies are going to end.

I imagine there is fear and trembling in Montecito, California, right now, because if the king can remove the title of Prince and Duke from Andrew, they can do it to Harry.

Harry is not the criminal that Andrew and Sarah are, but Harry and Meghan have said some unkind things in public about the British royal family. The monarchists of the United Kingdom have no sympathy for them and will be glad to cut them out. And the republicans of the United Kingdom don’t want any more royalty anyway.