OPINION:
There has been a lot of pushback lately on a number of levels, which is encouraging in a society that in many ways seems to have gone off the rails.
In New York City, seven landlords are suing over Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rent freeze on close to 1 million units. They are worried that, as costs rise, they will not be able to keep up their properties. That is a major concern since the Islamist-communist mayor has pledged to seize ownership of buildings that fall into disrepair.
It is a malicious scheme. Starve the property owners of the revenue they need to keep their units livable, and when they cannot, the government comes in to assume ownership so it can create more slums full of people grateful for “free” housing.
This is diabolical socialism (a redundancy, I know), and it is familiar to those forced to live under it in places such as Cuba and North Korea. May the landlords who want a 3% annual rent increase win this one.
The mayor was forced to acknowledge last week that he lacked the legal authority to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli prime minister set foot in New York City.
In 2024, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Mr. Netanyahu, charging him with war crimes and crimes against humanity over Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip in response to the murderous Hamas invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Mr. Mamdani said he was cooperating with the ICC, even though the United States does not recognize the court’s authority.
On July 20, President Trump made it clear in a Truth Social post that Mr. Mamdani had better not overstep: “Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America. He is fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which recently killed 52,000 innocent protestors, and has spent the last 47 years killing American Soldiers, and others. The only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented SPIRAL OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION, something that should have been dealt with years ago, by previous Presidents!”
Mr. Mamdani told The New York Times over the weekend that his staff was still exploring the legalities of apprehending Mr. Netanyahu if the prime minister visited the United Nations in September. Then, in a July 22 post on X, the mayor backed off while still calling the Israeli leader a “war criminal” who is “not welcome in New York City.”
So the Marxist leader of America’s largest city will not get to engage in foreign policy after all. Would New York’s finest really have gone along with this insane scheme to pit them against federal agents sent to protect the Israeli leader? Thanks be to God that we will not have to find out.
This is just the sort of nuttiness we have come to expect from the unhinged leftists seizing control of the Democratic Party. In addition to backing collectivism, open borders and the terrorist group Hamas, they have enacted laws in more than a dozen states to allow quack doctors to give sexually confused minors life-changing drugs and sexual surgeries.
On Tuesday, 203 House Democrats voted against an amendment to the defense bill that would bar males from female sports teams at Department of Defense schools.
The party is clearly lurching into full-tilt Graham Platner territory.
A Nazi-tattooed communist and accused rapist, Mr. Platner had been picked by Democratic primary voters to run against Republican Susan M. Collins, Maine’s longtime U.S. senator. After Mr. Platner withdrew, Democrats quickly anointed another leftist: former state Senate President Troy Jackson.
Given that the Marxist group Our Revolution, founded by Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, has already endorsed him, Mr. Jackson may have a hard time pretending to be a moderate. The smart money is on Ms. Collins to retain her seat.
Elsewhere, there was pushback against the Smithsonian Institution’s woke agenda, which was recently laid bare in a 162-page White House report. On Tuesday, Anthea Hartig, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, faced a barrage of embarrassing questions before the House Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency.
Republican members revealed numerous examples of how the museum had become a leftist indoctrination machine. Ms. Hartig waffled when asked about drag queen exhibits open to children and about whether men could become women, calling it “irrelevant.”
She dodged inquiries about a “mass action tool kit” that the museum adopted under her leadership and which labeled traits such as “objectivity” and “politeness” as examples of “white supremacy culture.”
Rep. Brandon Gill, Texas Republican, asked Ms. Hartig about an exhibit that said Mickey Mouse had racist origins related to Black minstrels. Although Ms. Hartig said, “Mickey Mouse is not racist,” she asserted that Walt Disney’s beloved character was “rooted in minstrelsy.”
In sports news, WNBA star Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever told ESPN that she opposes allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports. Ms. Cunningham has gained prominence through videos she posts defending her superstar teammate, Caitlin Clark, a White, straight, Catholic woman who is getting pummeled by jealous players from other teams.
As far as the transgender issue, Ms. Cunningham said she loved everyone, but “I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
If common sense like this breaks out all over the country and people connect the dots, Democrats will not be celebrating after the midterm elections in November.
• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
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