More Great News on Other Fronts (posted 5/4/26)

On Friday I wrote about all the good things that have been happening in our courts lately. But several other groups of feel-good stories are happening, the first of which revolve around bad people doing bad things, and reaping what they sow.

For example, three members of an ultra-creepy, bullying family in Minneapolis were behaving like thuggish creeps at an anti-ICE coven meeting — er, protest — last month. Turning Point USA reporter Savanah Hernandez was reporting on the Satanic goings on, so the unholy trio – dad Christopher Ostroushko, mom Deyanna and daughter Paige – attacked her.

The daughter blasted away with a whistle inches from Hernandez’s ears, while a mob began shoving and hitting her, knocking her to the ground and screaming obscenities. Conveniently, video showed all three Ostroushkos at the front of the pack, doing the assaulting.

Or, as the left calls it, “peacefully protesting.”

In past years, these kind of crimes happened in great numbers in lawless blue cities and states – you may remember the months of antifa riots, BLM riots, Michael Brown riots, George Floyd riots, etc. – and the perpetrators were generally given slaps on the wrist, in the rare case that they faced any consequences at all.

But this time, the FBI opened an investigation within hours of the videos surfacing, and last Wednesday a grand jury handed down indictments against all three on a variety of charges. And their reactions were textbook violent lefty cry-bully: they lied their arses off, and whined that they are the real victims.

Dad – a bald guy with a permanent sneer which makes him look like a large, angry thumb — said that he was only defending his wife and daughter, and claimed that Hernandez was the aggressive one that day. You know, the way that a lone, petite woman will often become very aggressive when surrounded by a frothing mob of dozens of screaming leftists. It’s a tale as old as time.

He said, with a straight thumb-face, “We are absolutely not violent people. In fact, we tend to shy away from it.”

Unfortunately for him, the video showed the opposite. So now dad is complaining about the “non-stop backlash” his family has experience since being smeared by that lying video; they’ve gotten hundreds of calls, texts and social media messages every day, and they’ve lost their jobs.

It’s gotten so bad that he says, “It’s a little overwhelming and makes me second-guess even living in this country, to be honest with you.”

To which the only compassionate response has to be, “HA! HA HA! HAHAHAHAHA!!”

I hope his family will stay in this country…for long enough to serve a federal sentence. After which they should definitely get the hell out.

Speaking of terrible people unexpectedly facing accountability, six thugs who were peacefully protesting in LA last year – by trapping cops in a patrol car under an overpass and homicidally raining rocks and bricks down on it – just pled guilty to a raft of federal charges.

They had the stunned and stupid looks on their faces that you’d expect to see on the faces of stupid people who had been watching hundreds of thousands of leftist co-religionists get away with similar crimes for years, and are only now realizing that the Cadaver in Chief has been replaced by the Orange Man.

And Orange-y don’t play.

I imagine the same realization started sinking in for many in the Somali community as a series of coordinated raids were carried out on the Learing Center and dozens of other pirate-adjacent fraud centers throughout Minnesota last week. And for hundreds of others in LA, where dozens of phony hospice-care, Medicaid-draining scams were apparently operating out of every strip mall, store-front, outhouse and dog house within a 50-mile radius.

After years of watching a soul-crushing parade of open, systematic flouting of the law in blue cities from coast to coast, it is SO refreshing to see a wave of accountability starting to sweep across the Augean Stables of corruption that Democrats – and corrupt Republicans too – have set up, and profited from!

The final group of stories that I hope will cheer you up this Monday morning revolve around the theme of dysfunctional, wrong-headed leftist policies collapsing in hugely satisfying ways.

Where better to start than in NYC, where Mamdani is 100 days in, and already his socialist promises are blowing up in his face on a daily basis? First the “warmth of collectivism” resulted in a bunch of homeless people (whom Mamdani had promised to allow to remain on the streets) freezing to death. Then the free buses had to be put on hold, because: duh! Then he announced the first “free” government grocery story will take three years to build, and will cost 10 times what a comparable Whole Foods or other grocery store would cost.

Then he made the creepy ad for tax day – the one where he walked up to the camera, tapped the glass and smirked, saying, “We’re taxing the rich!” and then announced a new tax on rich guys with unoccupied luxury apartments. He specifically called out billionaire investor Ken Griffin, whose apartment he stood in front of, so that the mobs with pitchforks will know where to meet for the lynching.

Annnnddddd… Griffin announced that he might not go ahead with a planned $6 billion NYC building project.

It’s all so stupid! During his time in New York, Griffin has paid the city around $3 billion ($2.3 billion in taxes, and $700 million in charitable giving), with all of the new jobs and downstream spending and tax revenue that goes along with that kind of economic activity. And Griffin had already moved himself and his company to Florida from another failing blue city (Chicago) in 2022.

All of which makes the optics of Mamdani’s gleeful stunt so perversely self-defeating. It’s telling that the smug leftist mantra is, “Tax the rich!” rather than, “Help the poor!” Because they are motivated by envy, and are clearly willing to hurt the poor, if doing so will allow them to hurt the rich.

Ironically, their policies only succeed at the former. Because Griffin – and many other financially successful people – clearly don’t need greedy leftist cities as much as those cities need them. As we can see from the capital and population flight from CA, NY and IL to red states in recent years.

Which brings us to Mamdani’s humiliating press conference last week, where he announced that NYC is in a catastrophic financial crisis. Unexpectedly!

NYC has a 3.88% income tax (added to NY state’s top income tax rate of 10.9%), and a 8.8% sales tax. The city’s budget for 2026 is $119.7 billion – more than the entire state budget of Florida! – and it is STILL not enough. Mamdani’s socialist schemes are going to require billions more from the state – a demand which even Kathy “Wicked Witch of Albany” Hochul is smart enough to greet with, “How about NO!” – as well as billions more in taxes from the richest New Yorkers.

When those people leave – in about 5…4…3… — that money is going to be gouged out of the middle class saps, many of whom voted for Mamdani, thus buying a ticket for FO-ville.

In other words, New York has a metastatic spending problem, which they’ve idiotically misdiagnosed as a revenue problem.

And that condition is similarly afflicting Seattle and their far-left, professional useless person mayor. Katie Wilson speaks like a teenage girl (multiple “likes” riddle every paragraph), and was still being financially supported by her parents when she was elected last November at age 43. She supports government-run grocery stores, and she recently walked picket lines with Starbucks workers and urged people to boycott the company. Coincidentally, Starbucks has been closing stores and shrinking their presence in Seattle, while they just announced a $200 million investment (and 2000 new jobs) in Tennessee.

So naturally, when Wilson was asked last month to respond to the flight of successful people from her city, her answer was AOC-esque: “I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are, like, super overblown. And if – the ones that leave, like, bye.”

Yes. Two “likes” and one “super” in that deep answer, which was given (to cheers and laughter) at a local university. Because of course it was.

Overall, we have reason to be optimistic. In addition to the short-term edification to be gained from watching these leftist experiments work themselves out – if by “work themselves out” I mean “unravel” (which I do) – longer-term gains should follow.

Whether they’re in New York, LA, Chicago, Seattle or Portland, leftist economic plans don’t work. And they’re not going to start working now…so conservative alternatives should become more attractive as leftist failures compound.

Now if we can just manage to hold onto the House in the mid-terms…

Que Mala/Crockett, 2028!

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The Self-Inflicted Wound that is Zohran Mamdani (posted 7/2/25)

When I left off yesterday, I was just getting to the new leftist blunderkind, the likely future mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani.

And I know what you’re thinking: “Zohran” is a good name for a Mongol raider, or a Martian emperor, or perhaps something from Pfizer that you can use to treat your dermatitis. (“Ask your doctor about extra-strength Zohran.  Side effects may include racial tension and economic palpitations, and in rare situations, rectal bleeding and civilizational collapse.”)

But it’s not a good name for a New York City mayor.  And unfortunately, his name is the least objectionable thing about him.  He’s a 34-year-old trust-fund socialist Muslim Jew-hater who’s never had a real job.   He graduated from Bowdoin (unexpectedly!) with a degree in Africana studies (unexpectedly!)  where he also co-founded the school’s chapter of “Students for Justice in Wakanda.”

Sorry, that should be “Students for Justice in Palestine.”  Got my non-existent countries mixed up there. 

Since graduation, he’s followed a career path of being a professional useless person, in such positions as volunteer, activist and agitator.  You know your resume is thin when the most prominent job you’ve held is “failed rapper.”   

And by the way, how the hell does someone fail at rapping?  Lose your rhyming dictionary? 

I mean, I’m almost as white as Liz Warren (#wemustneverstopmockingher), and even I can rap.  

Here you go:

Zohran’s bad, he makes me mad,

my dog is sad, no one’s glad. 

He oughta be mayor of Islamabad.    

Beeyotch!”

Now go watch one of Zohran’s old rap videos, and tell me my rap wasn’t just as good. 

In fact, tomorrow morning I’m going to take a whack at writing my Grammy acceptance speech.  And while I can’t tell you exactly what that will entail, I can tell you the last lines right now: “Shout out to Tom Petty, Rest in Power!  Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Just kidding.  If any of you ever hear me say, “Rest in Power,” you have my permission to shoot me in the face with whatever firearm is closest to hand.   

Anyway, Zohran is terrible in many ways.  As someone has noted in the past, NYC is already Sodom, but with Soviet Economics.  And ZM said to himself, “Why not go for the trifecta and throw some Jew hatred in there too? See how that goes?” 

Z’s long history of anti-Semitism is already causing some deliciously entertaining leftist-on-leftist infighting in Democrat circles.  A deranged HuffPo article on Senator Kirstin Gillibrand calling out Zohran’s bigotry featured someone named Sanjana Karanth (gesundheit) turning the dishonesty dial up to 11.

She described Gillibrand’s accurate statements as “a shockingly racist tirade” and “the lie that Mamdani endorses rhetoric that endangers Jewish New Yorkers, without mentioning the anti-Muslim hate rising alongside anti-Semitism.”

Yes.  Karanth (Bless you.  Do you need a tissue?) makes a great point, because we are all aware of the tidal wave of hatred directed toward Muslims in America. 

Such as the Jewish massacre of 11 peaceful Muslims worshiping at the Tree of Life synagogue, and the evil Egyptian rabbi who just lit a bunch of peacefully protesting Muslims on fire in Boulder, and the Torah-studying villain who shot that young Muslim couple outside the Capital Jewish Museum in DC last month, and—

No, wait.  My crack research staff tells me that those were all attacks and murders of Jews.  I would recount the hundreds of recent hate-crime attacks on Muslims in America, but when I asked Siri for that list, she just laughed at me until I had to turn her off.  So my bad.     

Zohran has repeatedly called for “globalizing the Intifada.”  Of course Zohran, his apologists, many Islamists, and Sanjana Karanth have a conveniently ahistorical response, pointing out that “intifada” just means “struggle.”

Regular readers know that since I retired I am working on learning German, and it just so happens that I know the German word for “struggle.”  Which is “Kampf.” 

As in, “Mein Kampf.” 

Which is NOT comforting, Zohran!  Especially since I’m sure that Hitler’s manifesto – if translated into Arabic – would be a big seller among Zohran’s co-religionists.  And “Mein Intifada” does not sound any better than the original!  

Even in a party lousy with anti-Semites, Zohran has distinguished himself.  Or as the great Babylon Bee put it, “Hamas Claims Responsibility for NYC Mayoral Primary.”

But Zohran the Merciless doesn’t just hate Jews.  He hates whitey and rich people too!  Like most innumerate socialists, he’s promising the world to poor people: free buses, free healthcare, nearly free grocery stores (Yay, USSR!), and rent control forever!  Ironically, the majority of the poor and black voters went for Cuomo, while it was the woke white college graduates who went strongest for Zohran.  Unexpectedly!

Or, as the Babylon Bee also put it, “Dems Discover Innovative Strategy of Promising Free Stuff to Stupid People.”

Zohran was dumb enough to say that he specifically wants to raise taxes on those in “richer and whiter neighborhoods,” and crunchy granola AWFLs were dumb enough to say, “Thank you sir, may I have another.”

Thus proving that racists who hate minorities are dead wrong.  Because there is nobody on God’s green earth dumber than a white, leftist, blue-city resident at the ballot box.

But the suicide-vest cherry on this intifada sundae is that Zohran has vowed that NYC is going to defy ICE deportation efforts.  After referring to the recent arrest of an illegal at Federal Plaza by ICE agents, Mamdani vowed that “those days are going to come to an end when I’m the mayor.”

Oh man, I am hoping that we can get this fight on pay-per-view! 

In one corner, it’s wimpy Zohran with his history of accomplishing nothing and nearly crying when he talks about mean tweets he’s received (he really did that), as he enters the ring waving copies of his grievance studies diploma and Mao’s Little Red Book. 

In the other corner we have Hulk Homan™, with his bulldog head, Popeye forearms and gravelly voice, who almost certainly has chunks of MS-13 gang members in his stool, and who enters the arena waving a copy of the US code saying that illegals can be deported forthwith.

Not since Mike Tyson in his prime took on that malnourished pre-teen suffering from asthma, spina bifida, rickets and childhood macular degeneration…

And just when I thought I couldn’t respect Zohran less, he took a page from the playbooks of Cankles McPantsuit (“Ah ain’t noways tie-uhd.”) and Que Mala (“Ya bettuh thank ah union membuh!”), and got caught adopting different accents to pander to different crowds. 

Videos of him from his rapping days and also more recently show him doing an Indian accent so pronounced that he made Apu from the Simpsons sound like Professor Henry Higgins.  During an interview, a New York reporter called him out on the issue.  Unexpectedly!

No, this time I’m being serious.  Because this time, it really WAS unexpected! 

Zohran said – in perfectly unaccented English — “New Yorkers, more than they hate someone they disagree with, hate someone they can’t trust.”  (By the way, you had us at “they hate.”)     

The reporter said, “On the issue of trust, you’ve adopted different speaking accents in different scenarios.  Is there one that’s real and one that’s affected?”

He lamely replied that, “There are different parts of my life.  Here in New York City, this is how I speak.”                     

Ugh.  Will the Democrat base never learn?  Normal people like authentic people.  One of the greatest compliments you can hear about a celebrity is “he’s the same person when the cameras are off as when the cameras are on him.”   

Even if a politician or celebrity has some rough edges, we like to know that he or she is not a phony.

For example, I’d bet my house that grade school Tom Homan was exactly the same as Tom Homan now, only smaller.

I picture him playing basketball at recess, when a tough kid from a different school hops the fence and grabs the ball from a smaller kid and starts shooting baskets.  And young pre-Hulk Homan confronts the kid.

 “If you know the Playground Rules, you’ll know that rule 7a is that nobody who doesn’t attend this school can play on this playground.  Now I’m going to give you to the count of 3 to get back on the other side of that fence.  1…” 

And on “2” he head butts the kid into next week, then picks him up and tosses him over the fence like a Martha’s Vineyard liberal tossing the illegals whom DeSantis flew there onto the first bus out of town.   

And Donald Trump sounds like Donald Trump, for good and ill, wherever he is.

Close your eyes.  Trump at the supper table, when he’s 8 years old…  

Well, you’ve got to open your eyes. Because I’m writing this, and you’re reading it.  But you know what I mean.

Trump at supper, age 8:

“Mom, this was a fantastic meatloaf.  Fantastic!  Nobody’s ever had meatloaf like this.  Other people say that meatloaf is their least favorite meal.  They’d rate it at the bottom of all foods, if it even got a rating at all.  And yet, this one was terrific!  Frankly, you have made meatloaf great again.”

The same guy, 70 years later, meeting with the Pope:   

“Hey, your Holiness, I want to apologize for our last guy.   I know you’re too righteous to say it, but I’m not: he was our worst president, even before he came here and sh*t on the guy before you, pardon my French.  Just a disgrace.  Anyway, I’d appreciate it if you’d put in a good word for me with the Man Upstairs, because I am surrounded by the lowest IQ Democrats ever.  Just between you and me, they don’t know what the f**k they are doing, you know?  Hey, do you still get to ride around in the Popemobile?”

And, scene.   

So let’s recap.  Trump is five months in, and he’s got the highest approval ratings he’s ever had.  Groceries, gas and inflation are down, and the border is closed.  The right track-wrong track numbers are up, military recruitment is up, and Iranian nuke sites and scientists are up. 

As in “blown up.”

The stock market has recovered, the BBB appears poised to pass, Trump is handing out EOs like Joe Frazier handing out naps, and  SCOTUS is slapping down leftist judges’ TROs like Macron’s wife slapping Macron.  Harvard is trembling, Rosie has fled to Ireland.  And Trump is in the process of crushing his enemies, seeing them driven before him, and listening to the lamentations of their men who identify as women.

And the Democrats are about to elect a cosplaying Communist jihadi who couldn’t run a lemonade stand to run NYC straight into the ground, a process which should be well underway about the time people are going to the polls in next year’s midterms.

To paraphrase an optimistic Elwood Blues talking to Joliet Jake right before the iconic car chase, it’s 17 months to the midterms, we’ve got a full tank of gas, a half a pack of EOs, things look dark for the Dems, and we’re wearing sunglasses. 

So we’ve got that going for us.

Hamas delenda est!