Yesterday, Tax Day, was the greatest American holiday — according to the Democratic Party.
You might think of Tax Day as something annoying and awful, that day when you slip a check in the mail that represents a gigantic chunk of your yearly earnings so the federal government can then spend all that money on a bunch of useless horse crap.
But that&#8217;s where you&#8217;re wrong, according to Democrats. For them, Tax Day is a magnificent delight, a day of festivities for all. We should look forward to it every year because taxes are incredible. 
As Joe Biden used to say, they are a sign of “patriotism,” of “social solidarity.”
Or, in reality, sticking it to the people who earn money in the United States.
There&#8217;s something even better for Democrats spending all of that magical money on awful nonsense. In fact, that&#8217;s the best part: It&#8217;s not your money. It was never your money. It was always their money.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
They let you control some of it. But the rest of it, they take from you, and then they burn it, just to show you that your economic freedom belongs to them.
The purpose of taxes, according to Democrats, is not a more prosperous society or the obliteration of poverty. The purpose of taxes is quite simple: to punish success.
Of course, they always deny that they believe the more successful you are, the more you ought to be punished.
One of the most seminal political debates I&#8217;ve ever covered was the 2008 Democratic debate involving then-Senator Barack Obama, whose <a href="https://www.c-span.org/clip/public-affairs-event/user-clip-obama-to-increase-capital-gains-tax-because-of-fairness/4830724">answer to a certain question</a> would in any normal world have disqualified him for the presidency.
The question was this: Would you increase the capital gains tax rate even if it resulted in less tax revenue for the government to spend?
Barack Obama said, “What I&#8217;ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.”
You understand? The purpose is “fairness.” That&#8217;s the purpose of taxes: fairness, not prosperity. It is not more government revenue to use for useful things. It is to punish people. It is “fairness.”
No Democrat has ever been able to answer this question: What exactly represents a fair tax rate? When is it fair enough?
If the normal person were to pay a 40% tax rate, and Richie Rich were to pay a 90% tax rate, would that be fair? If, in fact, everyone were to pay a 100% tax rate, would that be fair? No Democrat can ever explain what the ideal fair tax rate is, because “fair” is a fungible term.
“Fair” doesn&#8217;t mean anything. “Fair” is in the eye of the beholder.
The real key is that you are punishing and reveling in punishing the rich people. That&#8217;s what it&#8217;s about.
That’s why the Democratic Party on Tax Day put out a tweet saying, “Tax the rich.” Not “help the poor,” “tax the rich.”
That&#8217;s all they care about: taxing the rich.
The way you know that it&#8217;s working is because you&#8217;re making the rich poorer. This is why Zohran Mamdani, the communist mayor of New York, was sitting on a stage yesterday with a gigantic backdrop reading “Tax the Rich,” <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/04/transcript-_mayor-mamdani-holds-tax-day-forum-with-economists-ga">while speaking</a> about how well all of this is working. 
He stated:
<blockquote>And so, for all of the discussion of the imagined exodus that would take place were we to tax the wealthiest New Yorkers by the appropriate amount, I say “imagined” because before I was a mayor, I was a state legislator, and I was part of an effort to increase taxes on millionaires at that time. We were told the same thing then. And what we find now is that we have more millionaires today than we did at that time, even after having passed that tax. </blockquote>
The reason you have more millionaires in the city is because of economic growth, period.
Mamdani, on Tax Day, decided it was time to announce the new pied-à-terre tax. The pied-à-terre tax is a tax on any home that is someone’s second home, a home that they don&#8217;t live in most of the year, that is worth more than $5 million.
The sick glee with which he announces taxes has nothing to do with helping people. It has everything to do with punishing people.
That is the glee. This is your smiling Jacobin. If you had a guillotine nearby and he had the capacity to use it, he most certainly would.
He cut an ad — which should creep the living hell out of you if you have half a brain — talking about how excited he is to tax people.
Remember, most people think of Tax Day as a miserable day because you&#8217;re giving a bunch of money that you earned to a bunch of people who did not earn that money, just so they can spend it on random crap.
But according to Mamdani, it&#8217;s the best day because he — as a useless person for his entire adult life who got elected mayor of New York  — finally gets to do the thing he wants to do: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLKZnVB4F9k">Bring the rich low</a>.
He said: 
<blockquote>Today we&#8217;re taxing. I&#8217;m thrilled to announce a pied à terre tax, the first in New York&#8217;s history. This is an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million whose owners do not live full time in the city. Like for this penthouse, which hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin bought for $238 million. This pied à terre tax is specifically designed for the richest of the rich, those who store their wealth in New York City real estate, but who don&#8217;t actually live here. 
But even so, they&#8217;re able to reap the huge financial rewards of owning property in, dare I say, the greatest city in the world. And most of the time these units are sitting empty since, again, they don&#8217;t actually live here. This is a fundamentally unfair system that hurts working new owners. Now it&#8217;s coming to an end. This tax will raise at least $500 million directly for the city.</blockquote>
I have a question. What is unfair about Ken Griffin spending a bajillion dollars for an apartment and then not spending time in the apartment? Do we really think that Mamdani would be fine with Ken Griffin if he lived in that apartment? Beyond that, doxing Ken Griffin&#8217;s apartment is a terrible thing for the mayor of New York City to do.
You notice they use the “Succession” music underneath, because all people who are rich are just like the people in “Succession.”
Except they&#8217;re not. I know a lot of rich people. Some are like the people in “Succession,” and many are not. I also know a lot of people who are not rich, and some of them are terrible, and some of them are wonderful.
The idea that virtue inherently correlates with the level of wealth is nuts, but it is what undergirds the level of hatred that Democrats have for people who earn.
All of this ignores that many people who are wealthy today were not so yesterday. I once had very little money in my bank account.
But that&#8217;s the beautiful thing about America, and it&#8217;s pretty incredible.
Yet according to Democrats, that&#8217;s a bad thing; it would be better if nobody had their money in their bank account.
Zohran Mamdani believes that people who earn more in a capitalist society are worse human beings.
And it is a nearly-universal idea among top-tier Democrats.

GettyImages-2245395863

Tax Day — A Feast Of Envy For Democrats

Ben Shapiro

Billionaire

Democratic Socialism

New York City

Opinion

Taxes

Wealth Tax

Zohran Mamdani

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, has now decided that the time has come: At long last, he&#8217;s going to put into action his Soviet plan for a government-run grocery store.
Are you excited about government-run grocery stores?
It&#8217;s going to be just great, because if there&#8217;s one thing that we have to fight off in America, it is starvation.
I know you&#8217;re thinking right now that we actually have a massive obesity problem in the United States. You&#8217;d be right.
But according to Mamdani, the biggest problem in America is that people cannot afford food, and the best way to make food affordable is for the government to open grocery stores.
This has never been tried anywhere.
Except for Cuba, the USSR, and most communist countries.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
That led, of course, to the very famous photos of Soviet leadership walking into American supermarkets and being astonished by the selection of products. Capitalism makes things better, cheaper, and more plentiful, which is how they become better and cheaper.
Mamdani explained: “This store will be open in 2029. The reason that we&#8217;re announcing it first is because unlike other stores, this will be built from the ground up. We are talking about a vacant lot that is about one or two blocks over there that is currently lying vacant. It is city-owned. We&#8217;re going to build it from the ground up.”
Just wow.
By the way, how much is it going to cost to build this grocery store from the ground up? According to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/12/nyregion/mamdani-city-owned-grocery-store-la-marqueta.html">New York Times</a>, $30 million.
$30 million.
I have a question. Do you think that when Publix builds a new store, it costs them $30 million?
Nope.
If the city subsidizes particular food products at a cheaper rate, either people will want to buy those food products or they will not. If they like eggs, for example, there will be a run on eggs, and then a shortage.
That&#8217;s what will happen, because when you subsidize the price of a product, it spurs more demand, and you will end up with a shortage — and longer lines.
Duh.
It is amazing how no one has ever read a book or even watched an old documentary.
Mamdani says he wants the new grocery store to offer discounts on basic groceries and to provide quality jobs. The city will waive rent and real estate taxes for the store.
If you really wanted to lower food prices, you could do that for all the grocery stores in New York. That would lower some prices.
But you know what else you could do? You could get rid of all of the regulations surrounding the grocery stores in New York, which make it very difficult to run and operate a business.
It&#8217;s hilarious that the minute the Democrats want to lower prices, they give a specific cut-out that gets rid of all of the government red tape, but just for their friends, like the government-run grocery store.
Meanwhile, Congressman Ro Khanna, the West Coast version of Zohran Mamdani, wants free everything. He called for free health care and free college.
There&#8217;s no such thing as free. There&#8217;s just stuff paid for by someone else.
“The moment has finally come for national health insurance,” Khanna declared. “Why? Because people now realize you cannot have health care linked to your job. Not at a time where your job may change or where you may lose your job. We need Medicare for all. That&#8217;s a better system with better outcomes, where health care is guaranteed to every single person from the day they are born. For our young people, where a short career opportunity is not limited by your family&#8217;s wealth, we need free college and free trade schools.” 
Free everything. How could that go wrong?
Maybe we can heavily subsidize everybody going to college. That won&#8217;t raise the price of — oh, it turns out that that radically raised the price of college.
Perhaps we could have more government subsidization of health care. That won&#8217;t raise the price of health care.
Whoops. That raises the price because it increases the base that people are willing to pay and are able to pay.
It doesn&#8217;t matter what the effect is.
The only thing that matters to the Democrats is that it feels good when they say the word “free” over and over and over again.

Mamdani Soviet

Mamdani’s Supermarket Sweep: Soviet Edition

Communism

groceries

Russia

Soviet Union

A top aide to Zohran Mamdani — and the creative force behind his viral campaign videos — is facing scrutiny after resurfaced social media posts showed praise for a senior Hamas figure tied to the October 7 terrorist attacks.
According to reporting from <a href="https://jewishinsider.com/2026/04/zohran-mamdanis-video-chief-lauded-hamas-chief-yahya-sinwar/">Jewish Insider</a>, Donald Borenstein, who was paid more than $90,000 by Mamdani’s campaign and now serves in City Hall as a creative director, posted messages in 2024 appearing to glorify Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas.
In one post, Borenstein described Sinwar as someone who “gave his entire life until the end fighting for his people’s liberation,” while mocking Israeli forces and praising imagery of Sinwar’s final moments. In another, he suggested footage released by Israel Defense Forces had inadvertently created a “heroic” image of the Hamas leader. He also reportedly used the phrase “from the river to the sea,” widely interpreted as a call for the elimination of the state of Israel.
The posts have since been deleted, but archived versions remain accessible.
Borenstein’s role in Mamdani’s rise has been significant. As director of video, he served as the primary cinematographer behind the polished social media content that helped propel the democratic socialist candidate into Gracie Mansion. His presence in the mayor’s inner circle raises familiar questions about the ideological influences shaping the administration.
The controversy adds to a growing pattern of scrutiny surrounding figures in Mamdani’s orbit. Previous reporting has highlighted social media activity from campaign allies and associates who appeared sympathetic to Hamas or dismissive of the October 7 attacks. Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, was also <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/nyc-first-lady-liked-post-oct-7-rape-hoax">reported to have liked posts</a> downplaying the attack, while independent <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/09/we-support-hamas-chants-put-mamdanis-israel-stance-at-center-stage-00720393">activist groups</a> aligned with his campaign have faced similar criticism.
Mamdani himself has publicly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-york-city-in-heightened-state-of-alert-after-saturdays-attack">condemned terrorism</a>, but repeated incidents involving those close to him suggest, at minimum, a tolerance for rhetoric that crosses into extremism.
The issue has taken on added weight in recent months as New York City has seen heightened tensions tied to the Iran conflict. In <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fbi-opens-terror-probe-after-homemade-bombs-in-nyc-linked-to-isis">a March incident</a>, a protest in the city featured two men found to be ISIS-inspired Islamists throwing an explosive, raising alarms about the presence of more radical elements within certain activist spaces.
Against that backdrop, Borenstein’s posts only intensify concerns about how deeply such sentiments may run within political and activist networks connected to City Hall. More broadly, the episode underscores the increasingly blurred lines between digital activism and governance and reminds Americans that online voices and content strategies that help propel candidates to power need to be viewed with a critical eye, especially as fringe ideologies take center stage in American politics.
For Mamdani, the challenge is no longer just about campaign optics, but about the people entrusted with shaping the image and direction of the nation’s largest city.

Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference outside the Federal Plaza in NYC

Top Mamdani Propagandist Hailed Hamas Mastermind As ‘Heroic’

Hamas

Pro-Hamas

Yahya Sinwar

Rudy Giuliani is sharply criticizing New York City politics and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, arguing that the city he once led is moving away from the reforms and identity he fought to build during his tenure as mayor.
Speaking in on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=840XLrUFcFA">&#8220;Pod Force One&#8221;</a>, Giuliani said his reaction to the current direction of the city is emotional and personal, describing it as “heartbroken” and rooted in decades of attachment to New York.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
💥NEW: Rudy Giuliani on Zohran Mamdani🤯💔
&#8220;My heart is broken.&#8221;
&#8220;I didn&#8217;t think it could get worse than de Blasio. I really didn&#8217;t. I thought, &#8216;Well, that&#8217;s it. Now we had the worst mayor.&#8217; WOW!&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/kEyUoIKnoe">pic.twitter.com/kEyUoIKnoe</a>
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/2043348364981395456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 12, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“The situation with New York, in a pure way, was a love affair,” Giuliani said. “I love New York. I love the city. I love what I did as mayor. I put my whole heart and soul into it.”
He added that his connection to the city goes beyond politics. “A lot of people love New York, but nobody loves it more than I do,” he said, pointing to his lifelong identity as a fan of the Yankees, Knicks, and Rangers as part of that bond.
Giuliani, who served as mayor from 1994 to 2001 and is widely credited with a major drop in crime during that period, said he believes the city is now in decline under its current leadership.
“I just think New York is potentially the greatest city on Earth and has been,” he said. “And what he’s doing to it … I didn’t think it could get worse than de Blasio. I really didn’t. I thought, well, that’s it. Now he had the worst mayor. Wow.”
Giuliani then escalated his criticism, framing Mamdani’s politics as part of a broader ideological threat. “He combines two things that I have been studying and fighting against since I was a child,” Giuliani said. “He’s a communist and he’s a violent supporter of violent Muslim religion.”
He went on to reference his early academic study of comparative religion, saying he had examined Islamic texts from a young age and concluded that they promoted violence in ways he found deeply troubling. He also stressed that he believes most Muslims are peaceful, while warning against what he sees as silence from within the broader community.
“The vast majority of Muslims are good people … but Muslims don’t stand up,” he said. “That’s what happens … good men do nothing.”
Giuliani extended his criticism beyond New York, warning about what he sees as broader cultural and political shifts in Western cities, suggesting that similar dynamics are emerging in Europe as well. Joking about a comment he made to Piers Morgan, “Charles the Third is gonna become an Imam.”
At the center of his remarks was a broader warning about what he views as ideological extremism taking hold in urban leadership, and a call for renewed political opposition to it.
Giuliani closed by reiterating his deep personal connection to New York and his belief that the city’s future is at risk if current trends continue, framing his comments as both a political critique and a personal lament for a city he once led through crisis and rebuilding.

Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani Thought NYC Hit Rock Bottom With DeBlasio. Then Came Mamdani.

Bill de Blasio

Politics

A man armed with a machete stabbed three people inside Grand Central Terminal in New York City on Saturday morning before being shot and killed by police after a prolonged confrontation on one of the busiest transit platforms in the country.
Police identified the suspect as Anthony Griffin, 44, who allegedly carried out the attacks after entering the subway system in Queens and traveling into Midtown Manhattan.
According to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, the sequence of events began around 9:30 a.m., when Griffin entered the subway at the Vernon Boulevard station in Queens and boarded a 7 train bound for Grand Central. Once there, he launched his first attack on an 84-year-old man on the 7 train platform, inflicting what Tisch described as “significant lacerations to the head and the face.”
Griffin then moved upstairs to the 4, 5, and 6 train platforms, where the violence continued. A 65-year-old man suffered similar injuries along with an open skull fracture, while a 70-year-old woman was slashed in the shoulder.
All three victims were transported to Bellevue Hospital. Police said their injuries, while serious, are not believed to be life-threatening.
At approximately 9:40 a.m., officers assigned to transit duty were flagged down by a civilian reporting that a man armed with a knife had just stabbed multiple people. As officers moved toward the 4, 5, 6 platforms, they encountered one of the victims coming up the stairs, confirming the attack. From the top of the stairs, officers observed Griffin on the platform and immediately ordered him to drop the weapon.
“The individual was armed with a large knife described as a machete and was behaving erratically, repeatedly stating that he was ‘Lucifer,’” Tisch said during a <a href="https://x.com/NYPDnews/status/2043011402827465011">press conference</a>.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This was the weapon recovered at the scene. <a href="https://t.co/J1gxyECKm3">pic.twitter.com/J1gxyECKm3</a>
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) <a href="https://twitter.com/NYPDnews/status/2043012597931270596?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 11, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Police issued at least 20 commands for Griffin to drop the weapon. Tisch said officers also attempted to de-escalate the situation, telling him, “We are going to get you help.”
The standoff lasted roughly ten minutes, according to law enforcement sources.
Griffin refused to comply. “He then advanced toward the officers with the knife extended,” Tisch said. “One officer discharged his firearm, striking the perpetrator twice.” Officers immediately began performing life-saving measures at the scene before Griffin was transported to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“Our officers were confronted with an armed individual who had already injured multiple people and was continuing to pose a threat,” Tisch said. “They gave clear commands. They attempted to de-escalate, and when that threat did not stop, they took decisive action to stop it and to protect New Yorkers on one of the busiest train platforms in the city.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he had been briefed on the incident shortly after it occurred and praised the response by law enforcement. “I’m grateful to the NYPD for their quick response and for preventing additional violence,” Mamdani posted on <a href="https://x.com/NYCMayor">X</a>. “The three victims were taken to the hospital and are thankfully in stable condition.”
The incident caused immediate disruption inside Grand Central, with yellow police tape blocking entrances and multiple subway lines diverted as officers secured the scene and began their investigation. Authorities said the entire encounter was captured on body-worn cameras, and the NYPD is expected to release that footage as part of its standard review process for officer-involved shootings.
Officials also noted that Griffin had three prior arrests, but no documented history of being classified as an emotionally disturbed person by the department. Tisch emphasized the challenges officers face in moments like this, particularly in a crowded transit hub. “Incidents like this show the reality of this work,” she said. “Officers step into situations where the risks are immediate and the stakes are high. They make decisions in tight spaces in real time with lives around them.”
The commissioner added that the NYPD has recently increased its presence in the subway system, deploying more than 175 additional officers to transit patrol in recent weeks, alongside existing overtime posts. “Their focus is on preventing violence and responding immediately when something happens, just as they did today,” Tisch said. “They work to ensure that the millions of people who ride our subways each day can do so safely.”
The investigation remains ongoing.

New-York-Subway-Violence-1_1775931890

‘Lucifer’ Unleashes Bloody Slashing Rampage Inside Grand Central Station

Crime

Law Enforcement

U.S.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has completed his tenant reach-out series, allowing him to start the process of crafting policy based on the testimonies his administration collected over the last six weeks.
Each week in a different borough of New York City, Mamdani invited renters to air their grievances about their landlords — one of Mamdani’s flagship initiatives. Within ninety days of the hearings, the Mayor’s Office of Tenant Protection, along with other agencies, will bring a joint report to Mamdani’s desk showcasing common themes they learned from tenants.
Mamdani’s team told renters that they wanted to hear about repairs, problems with rats, problems with heat, deceptive fees from landlords, and “ICE-related harassment in buildings.”
“Your testimony will directly inform policy changes to strengthen city policies to protect tenants,” an ad for the dubbed &#8220;Rental Ripoff&#8221; series stated.
The Daily Wire spoke to one of the tenants offering her testimony.
“I’ve been living in my apartment for over ten years. We didn’t have heat in the apartment most of the time for years. We had walls that were collapsing, a ceiling that’s collapsing, a horrific bug and rat infestation problem,” a female tenant, Abigail, said.
When asked why she remained in the apartment, she told The Daily Wire it was because it was rent stabilized. She pays $300 a month for her share of a three-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. She said the total rent for the apartment was $900 monthly, while the average rent for a three-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn is <a href="https://www.apartments.com/rent-market-trends/brooklyn-ny/">$4,892</a> a month.
Abigail explained that she was a comic strip artist, so it was hard to find an affordable place to live. She hopes Mamdani keeps her rent frozen at $300 and that he mandates that her landlord fix all that is wrong with her apartment.
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The Rental Ripoff hearings were led by Mamdani’s Director of Tenant Protection Cea Weaver — who infamously claimed that “Homeownership is a tool of white supremacy.” In her presentation, titled “New Yorkers vs. Bad Landlords,” Weaver told renters that the mayor’s office would use the feedback collected at the hearings to inform housing policy going forward.
New York real estate broker Adam Frisch warned The Daily Wire that the hearings are too one-sided. “They should pull from a combination of tenants, landlords, financiers, developers, and economists. Everybody looks at the situation with their own biases, and it’s the role of the mayor to sit down with tenants and landlords and say I know you’re both unhappy. Let’s see what we can do.”
Landlords blame rent stabilization for the poor conditions of certain apartments. Without the ability to raise rent, they say, they are unable to generate sufficient revenue to maintain their buildings.
Pinnacle Group, a major New York landlord, filed for bankruptcy in 2025, claiming that the “sharp increase in financing costs outpaced rental revenue, which could not be correspondingly increased due to rent stabilization.”

NYC Mayor Mamdani Holds News Conference

After Weeks Of One-Sided Open Mic Complaints, Mamdani Eyes Housing Power Grab

Economy

Housing

America’s favorite socialist import, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, just dropped his Preliminary Citywide Racial Equity <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/assets/equity/downloads/pdf/FINAL_PUBLISH_Preliminary%20REP_4%206%2026.pdf">Plan</a> and unsurprisingly surmised that white New Yorkers are too wealthy.
According to his new report, a 375 page bureaucratic word salad spread across 45 city agencies, the median net worth of a white household in NYC is roughly $277,000. For black households it’s about $19,000, a nearly 15-fold difference. Mamdani’s solution to this abhorrent problem, is a “whole-of-government” race-based overhaul that explicitly prioritizes “black and brown New Yorkers” who’ve supposedly been “pushed out” for decades.
This is an odd way of saying black and brown people are going to be given special treatment over their white counterparts.
The plan is textbook grievance politics dressed up as compassion. It lays out hundreds of goals, more than 800 strategies, and over 600 indicators across all 45 city agencies, to try and put down the white folk. From housing and health to pothole filling, these agencies must view their work through a “racial equity lens.” In other words, resources, jobs, and contracts will be doled out based on skin color, not merit, need, or behavior. This will coincide with anti-racism training for city workers, pay equity mandates by race, and new “True Cost of Living” measures — all absolutely necessary to ensure a nation&#8217;s success, right?
It won’t be cheap. The Mayor’s Office of Equity and Racial Justice and the Commission on Racial Equity (a mouthful) is already budgeted at $10.2 million per year, which is a 42% jump from last year. Meanwhile, New York City is staring at a $5.4 – $7.1 billion <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/04/07/opinion/mamdanis-cost-of-living-crisis-is-simply-a-cover-for-government-excess/">budget</a> shortfall. But sure, let’s keep pouring money into this black hole of DEI bureaucracy. 
Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, immediately said she would look into the proposal, and reminded Americans that there’s no such thing as “reverse discrimination” — it’s just plain old discrimination, and it’s illegal.
The real driver of these gaps isn&#8217;t some ancient conspiracy keeping black and brown New Yorkers down. It&#8217;s the policy machine the city built over decades. Benefit structures that penalized marriage and work over dependency didn&#8217;t close wealth gaps — they entrenched them, weakening family formation in the communities they claimed to help. Meanwhile, high <a href="https://www.ibo.nyc.gov/assets/ibo/downloads/pdf/taxes-and-other-revenues/2026/2023-pit-data.xlsx">taxes</a>, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=225585">crime</a>, failing schools, and endless red tape pushed productive families out. Mamdani&#8217;s plan doesn&#8217;t reckon with any of that. It just adds a racial lens to the same failed apparatus.
This is the horseshoe theory in action. Marxist “equity” meets identity politics and ends up in the same place, punishing success to buy votes. The <a href="https://reason.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-on-affirmative-action-eliminating-racial-discrimination-means-eliminating-all-of-it/#:~:text=In%20a%206%E2%80%933%20decision%2C%20the%20Supreme%20Court,racial%20discrimination%20in%20the%20college%20admissions%20process.">Supreme Cour</a>t already gutted race-based preferences, correctly identifying that explicit discrimination by race violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Mamdani knows this, he just hopes Trump’s DOJ is too busy to sue.
New Yorkers deserve color-blind policy, not skin-color equity delivered by a Champagne socialist. Prioritizing one race over another doesn’t close “inequity” gaps, it widens resentment and accelerates the exodus of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Mo3-peFUzzA#:~:text='Varney%20&amp;%20Co.'%20host%20Stuart%20Varney%20warns,and%20residents%20out%20of%20New%20York%20as">taxpayers</a> who actually fund the whole circus. When the bill finally comes due — because it always does — by way of higher taxes, worse services, and more crime, the same “disproportionately affected” communities will be the hardest hit.
Mamdani ran on affordability. Now he’s pivoting to race essentialism because actual solutions such as school choice, cutting regulations, enforcing the law, and promoting two parent families are politically inconvenient for a Democratic Socialists of America mayor. It’s easier to blame “whiteness” than failed ideology.
They call this “racial equity.” I don’t think so. Because once government starts picking winners and losers by race, you don’t get justice. You get Martin Luther King, Jr. rolling in his grave. You get South Africa with better bagels. And you get a whole bunch of angry, poor, and divided New Yorkers.

NYC Mayor Mamdani Makes A Housing-Related Announcement

Mamdani’s Newest Policy Plan Is Just Straight-up Racism Against White People

Anti-Racism

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

The Trump administration is considering a new plan to pressure sanctuary cities to change their ways.
In his first interview since his confirmation, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Monday that he&#8217;s weighing pulling Customs officers from major airports in sanctuary cities to force them to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The move would effectively prevent international travel through those airports.
&#8220;I believe sanctuary cities is not lawful,&#8221; Mullin told Fox News&#8217; Bret Baier. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think they&#8217;re able to do that, and so we&#8217;re gonna take a hard look at this.&#8221;
He pointed specifically to international airports as a potential pressure point.
&#8220;If they&#8217;re sanctuary cities, should they really be processing Customs into their city?&#8221; Mullin asked. &#8220;If they&#8217;re a sanctuary city and they&#8217;re receiving international flights, and we&#8217;re asking them to partner with us at the airport, but once they walk out of the airport they&#8217;re not gonna enforce immigration policy, maybe we need to have a really hard look at that because we need to focus on cities that want to work with us.&#8221;
President Donald Trump&#8217;s immigration enforcement effort has targeted some sanctuary cities by flooding them with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and Border Patrol agents. One such operation took place in Chicago last year, where local authorities were restricted from working with ICE.
Mullin suggested the potential policy change comes alongside broader resource constraints and political battles in Washington, including a partial government shutdown over Democrats&#8217; demands to dramatically reform ICE.
&#8220;We&#8217;re gonna have to start prioritizing things at some point,&#8221; Mullin said.
&#8220;Right now, a number of the Democrats are wanting to defund Customs and Border Patrol. Well, who processes those individuals when they walk off a plane? And so I&#8217;m gonna have to be forced to make hard decisions,&#8221; he added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Mullin: I believe sanctuary cities is not lawful. Some of these cities have international airports. If they are a sanctuary city, should they really be processing customs into their city? We need to have a really hard look at that.
Baier: So you are saying that big cities that… <a href="https://t.co/UAJxWFZtZI">pic.twitter.com/UAJxWFZtZI</a>
— Acyn (@Acyn) <a href="https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/2041279294325071987?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
During his confirmation hearing last month, Mullin offered a willingness to implement &#8220;a better approach&#8221; for ICE, saying he “would love to see&#8221; the agency &#8220;become a transport more than the frontline.”
“If we can get back into just simply working with law enforcement, we’re going to them and we’re picking up these criminals from their jail. One, we’re gonna reimburse them for having the person there, and that partnership is vitally important,” he said.

Sanctuary_cities_airports

Sanctuary Cities Warned To Put Americans First Or Lose Critical Airport Lifeline

Markwayne Mullin

Sanctuary Cities

Tax an individual enough and they will vote with their feet, warned JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon in his annual shareholder letter on Monday. 
Dimon’s already making the move for JPMorgan Chase by employing more people in his Dallas office than in the company’s New York City headquarters. The banker added that the trend will only continue. Over the past decade, JPMorgan has reduced its New York City headcount from 30,000 to 24,000, while expanding its Texas ranks from 26,000 to 32,000. Dimon acknowledged that New York remains a strong hub for financial talent, but said high costs are one of the firm’s biggest challenges.
“No city or company or country has a divine right to success,” wrote the CEO in his annual shareholder letter. “People like to make this a moral or loyalty issue, but it is not.”
Dimon framed the issue not as politics, but as basic economics. “Companies need to remain competitive in this very competitive, fast-moving world. Higher taxes mean lower returns on capital and less competitiveness by their nature.”
He also drew a comparison to New York in the 1970s, when “nearly half of the 125 Fortune 500 companies based in New York City left.” While mergers played a role during that era’s surge in dealmaking, Dimon argued that “the price of doing business in New York City accounted for most” of the departures. The exodus of major employers contributed to the city’s fiscal crisis and near-bankruptcy in 1975, eroding its tax base.
The 2026 exodus isn’t limited to JPMorgan. Wells Fargo <a href="https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/dallas-county/wells-fargo-massive-irving-campus-texas-banking-boom-accelerates/287-7febeb0c-d4ec-45e4-903f-f93e38e32e3e">opened</a> a new 850,000 square-foot campus in 2025 in Texas and Goldman Sachs is <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/pressroom/press-releases/2025/gs-unveils-fresh-look-inside-northend-campus">developing</a> a $500 million dollar campus in Dallas’ Victory Park. The influx of financial firms has earned the city the nickname “Y’all Street.”
Dimon warned that the trend is likely to accelerate, potentially worsening an already fragile moment for New York City. While he did not mention him by name, his comments come as newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani advocates for higher taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations. Less than a month into office, Mamdani floated raising property taxes to address what he described as a multibillion-dollar budget gap comparable to the Great Recession. He has also pushed Governor Kathy Hochul to raise the corporate tax rate from 7.25% to 11.5% and add a 2% tax on incomes above $1 million.
When Mamdani won his election, Dimon opened the communication lines by calling the newly elected mayor. Previously, Dimon <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/business/mamdani-nyc-business-leaders.html">called</a> Mamdani’s free buses and rent freezes “the same ideological mush that means nothing in the real world.”
Mamdani has previously told reporters that when he goes into meetings with business leaders, he keeps an open mind. “I go into each of these meetings knowing what I know, knowing what I believe, and interested in what I can also learn from each and every one of the people who have made the city what it is.”
So far, however, there is little indication that the business community’s concerns about higher taxes have swayed him.

Jamie Dimon

Jamie Dimon Has Bad News For NY — And Red State May Reap The Rewards

JP Morgan

Texas

Wall Street

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani sparked a wave of backlash when he responded to the shooting death of seven-month-old Kaori Patterson-Moore, blaming her death on gun violence rather than the criminal who opened fire in his city in broad daylight.
&#8220;Earlier today a seven-month-old baby was shot and killed,&#8221; he said. &#8220;A life that had barely begun was taken in an instant.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the fatal shooting of a baby in Brooklyn by a stray bullet a &#8220;devastating reminder&#8221; of the work that remains to be done to combat gun violence. <a href="https://t.co/fCUKHY42Hj">https://t.co/fCUKHY42Hj</a> <a href="https://t.co/S6aePIpg6K">pic.twitter.com/S6aePIpg6K</a>
— ABC News (@ABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ABC/status/2039784745018507525?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 2, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;This is not our first family to know this pain,&#8221; Mamdani said. &#8220;Too many children have never grown up into becoming adults. Too many parents have had to bury those they love most. We cannot accept this as normal in our city. We cannot grow numb to this pain, and today is a devastating reminder of just how much more work there is to be done to combat gun violence across the city.&#8221;
New York City Councilwoman Vicki Paladino criticized Mamdani for laying the blame on guns rather than the criminals who fired them, saying in an <a href="https://x.com/VickieforNYC/status/2039875425598361670">X post</a>, &#8220;Literally anything but blaming the criminals who our system releases onto our streets repeatedly, over and over again, with no consequences. Absolute disgrace.&#8221;
Media Research Center Managing Editor <a href="https://x.com/RealBrittHughes/status/2039796165193932878">Brittany Hughes</a> pointed out the hypocrisy of Mamdani&#8217;s position, noting that he&#8217;d said nothing when an 83-year-old military veteran had been pushed onto the subway tracks. He later died from his injuries and an illegal alien was charged in his death.
&#8220;An 83-year old veteran was killed in New York City last month after being randomly pushed onto the subway tracks by an illegal alien. Mamdani didn’t say a word because trains aren’t a good political prop, and he won’t condemn criminal aliens,&#8221; she said.

Mayor Mamdani And NYC Police Commissioner Tisch Discuss Crimes Statistics

Mamdani Sparks Backlash With Response To 7-Month-Old Baby Shot In NYC

Gun Violence

Violent Crime

That’s what I want to say to Alex Gervasi, a paid Zohran Mamdani influencer, who recently posted a social media <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWehnSricXr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&amp;igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==">reel</a> declaring that J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series taught her everything she needed to know about “fascism.” Gervasi, who says she volunteers in immigration courts, offered this insightful gem: ICE agents are comparable to Dementors, because both “patrol hallways.” One looks for half-bloods, the other for people illegally residing in the country after bypassing our immigration laws.
Quite the stretch. But I’m glad she made it, because it gives us the opportunity to dismantle her bloody narrative piece by piece.
First, let’s address the premise of her argument: that J.K. Rowling is a “transphobic, right-wing, lunatic.” 

Incorrect — on all counts. 

Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book in an Edinburgh café while her infant daughter napped beside her, having recently fled an abusive marriage. She became a feminist icon. She is, by any serious measure, a formidably intelligent, philanthropic activist who has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to charity. She supported the Labour Party for years, vocally opposed Scottish independence, and was adamantly against Brexit. She was, in short, the liberal establishment’s dream — until she committed the unthinkable: she broke ranks with the progressive vanguard to argue that sex is real, sex is binary, and a woman is not a costume a man can put on.
Rowling is not transphobic. A phobia, by definition, is a fear. She does not fear transgender people — she has explicitly stated she supports their right to live free from harassment. What she maintains, correctly, is that biological sex is real, immutable, and distinct from gender identity, and that self-identification policies can undermine women’s hard-won protections in single-sex spaces, sports, and medical services. She opposes the surgical and chemical alteration of minors. She is commonsensical. She lives in the world of observable reality, not the relativism that insists biological sex is merely a social construct. She is right.
Now, to the Harry Potter-as-an-antifascist-manifesto argument — our influencer seems to have consumed something stronger than Butterbeer, because one simply cannot conflate the half-blood persecution of Voldemort’s regime with American immigration enforcement without abandoning all logical rigor.
Many of the illegal immigrants she is so passionately defending have entered our sovereign nation, bypassed established vetting processes, ignored or fled immigration hearings, and are living among citizens while accessing American housing, education, and healthcare — in some jurisdictions, even participating in elections. Contrast that with the legal immigrant: a cornerstone of this nation, who spent time, money, and genuine effort into assimilation, who learned the language, who embraced American civic culture. Those muggles are welcome. They are, in every meaningful sense, American.
A half-blood — a person born to one magical and one non-magical parent — has no analog to an illegal immigrant. If anything, a half-blood maps far more neatly onto an American citizen with one immigrant parent. The persecution Rowling depicts is irrational bigotry directed at an immutable biological characteristic. Illegal entry into a country is not a birth status. It is a policy violation.
As for ICE agents being Dementors? ICE officers enforce democratically passed federal law. They detain individuals who have violated immigration statutes, often after due process proceedings, and their work directly protects American communities from cartel activity, fentanyl trafficking, and the strain of an overwhelmed immigration system. Dementors, for the record, guard actual criminals and feed on human despair. If we’re hunting for that particular archetype in the real world, I’d suggest looking considerably further left. 
The crowning irony is that J.K. Rowling did mock fascism in her books. She did mock racism. She continues to oppose both. She constructed an entire fictional universe as a sustained meditation on the dangers of blood purity ideology, authoritarianism, and mob conformity. She won. The books are beloved the world over — including, apparently, by people who now use them to smear her as a fascist because she won’t agree that biology is a social construct. 

We do not live under a fascist regime. Our leaders are not rounding up people for their bloodlines. These are rhetorical cudgels, deployed in lieu of actual argument when policy disagreement becomes too uncomfortable to engage with honestly.
J.K. Rowling simply acknowledges that biological sex is a real and immutable characteristic. In the wizarding world of Harry Potter, perhaps the rules are different. But we do not live in the wizarding world. We live in this one. Pretending otherwise — subordinating observable and scientific reality to ideological comfort — is not progressivism. It is, to borrow a phrase, mental.

Hogwarts Castle in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood

Zohran Mamdani Superfan Imagines A Harry Potter Fascist Fantasyland

Anti-ICE

Illegal Immigation

JK Rowling

U.S. Politics

New York City Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani is moving to cut third-party consulting contracts as he works to implement his socialist agenda and close a $5.4 billion budget deficit, adopting a cost-cutting approach similar to that of President Donald Trump&#8217;s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative.
In 2025, as part of Trump&#8217;s effort, DOGE canceled $5.1 billion in consulting services from private contractors, including Deloitte, which had more than <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/04/03/doge-private-contract-crackdown-deloitte-consultancies/">120</a> contracts eliminated. 
Mamdani <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/03/mayor-mamdani-releases-update-on-savings-plan">said</a> the city will eliminate consulting agreements across several agencies, including the Department of Corrections, NYC Aging, the Department of Social Services, and the Office of Technology and Innovation.
&#8220;The city was paying for a lot of work from outside contractors that was costing us far too much,&#8221; he said in a <a href="https://x.com/NYCMayor/status/2036801229322412378">post</a> on X. &#8220;So we&#8217;re bringing a lot of that work in-house and saving our budget millions.&#8221;
The cuts are expected to save roughly $15 million, a small fraction of the overall deficit.
Mamdani&#8217;s move comes as he continues grappling with the city&#8217;s growing fiscal challenges. He has blamed the current fiscal crisis on financial mismanagement by the Adams administration, which came under fire for consulting spending. The city paid elite consulting firm McKinsey <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-hired-mckinsey-to-assess-the-citys-waste-needs-2024-7">$1.6</a> million to study, design, and plan a new system to keep trash off the sidewalks. Critics mocked the result, saying the firm effectively produced a redesigned trash can under the label “containerization.” 
If Mamdani is unable to secure additional revenue through Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul, he has said the city may turn to a last resort: raising property taxes by 9.5% and drawing down its “rainy day fund.”
Mamdani points in part to the roughly <a href="https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2024/12/following-asylum-seeker-odyssey/382850/">$4.3</a> billion cost of housing and supporting more than <a href="https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2024/12/following-asylum-seeker-odyssey/382850/">210,000 migrants</a> who arrived in the city under his predecessor in 2022. He has argued that the situation is worse than the 2008 financial crisis.
That claim is debatable. During the financial crisis, roughly <a href="https://medium.com/@jmk9857/gfc-nyc-a-look-at-the-2008-global-financial-crisis-and-its-impact-on-new-york-city-e594402f3302">55,000</a> New Yorkers lost their jobs, and city deficits averaged about $5 billion, equivalent to about $7.6 billion today. Even as he warns of a &#8220;generational fiscal crisis,&#8221; Mamdani has downplayed recent credit outlook downgrades, calling them premature as negotiations for additional revenue continue.

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Interview

Mamdani Steals Move From Trump’s Playbook To Try To Fund His Socialist Agenda

DOGE

New York

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