By Lawrence Block
I am disappointed to hear that Sid Rosenberg and the owner of WABC 770 AM radio, Catsimatidis, are arguing for our Republican candidate for NYC Mayor, Curtis Sliwa to leave the mayoral race and to throw his support to the Independent candidate, Andrew Cuomo – father of No Cash Bail; speaker of the words, “America was never THAT great”; chargee of THIRTEEN women who claimed Cuomo committed sexual assault, abuse, etc., and the architect of sanctuary status in New York City and State.
Cuomo also received notoriety for issuing administrative orders that compelled nursing homes to accept COVID patients into their facilities, where over 16,000 seniors eventually died of the virus – arguably due to Cuomo’s ill-conceived mandates.
On a related matter, when President Trump moved boats into NY harbor that had been converted by Trump into floating hospitals for patients, Cuomo requested that the boats be refitted to meet the specific needs of COVID patients. Once this was accomplished, Cuomo redirected all Covid patients to be transferred to existing and over-filled city hospitals and nursing homes rather than utilizing the floating hospitals provided by Trump. And so, the Covid floating hospitals remained empty until Trump reluctantly and finally moved the ships to a city that was more likely to utilize them.
I believe that Cuomo considers his game playing and his self-perceived showmanship in refusing to utilize Trump’s floating hospital facilities, that would have saved Covid sick New Yorkers from death, as an example of “standing up to Trump”. During this time, too many New Yorkers died, and too many New Yorkers were left to mourn their loss of loved ones.
And in Cuomo’s typical outrageous over-zealous hubris, he wrote a book touting his “leadership” during the Covid pandemic and profited off his direct involvement in the death of too many New Yorkers. In fact, the New York Joint Commission (JCOPE) found Cuomo guilty of using taxpayers’ money, public-servant time and government staff to help write and promote his self-serving book. As a result, Cuomo was ordered to pay back $5.1 million of his book profits to New York State.
Cuomo and Mamdani seem to agree on no cash bail, the “City of Yes”, other real-estate legislation that takes away decision making from local elected officials and places decision-making squarely in the hands of landlords and investors who have the capital to knock down single family houses and replace multiple lots with big buildings regardless of the zoning restrictions that previously existed. In other words, both Mamdani and Cuomo support practices guided by greed that will ultimately destroy the character of neighborhoods throughout New York City. Cuomo and Mamdani also support Local Law 97 which was passed in 2019 as part of the Climate Mobilization Act. In short, this law requires all condos and coops in NYC to convert by retrofitting for full electrification or no reliance on fossil fuels in different stages from now to 2050. The exorbitant cost of these conversions will be passed on to apartment owners, substantially increasing in their monthly maintenance charges over the course from partial to full implementation.
It’s hard to determine if Cuomo still supports Affirming (trans) Care and boys in girl’s locker-rooms in public schools. I’m guessing that both Cuomo and Mamdani support these policies including medical transitional practices that mutilate and scar our children by use of “Nazi-like medical experimentation procedures” that do irreversible harm.
New York Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa on the other hand, holds more conservative and humane positions. Mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa is against No Cash Bail, Open borders, and sanctuary cities. In addition, he vehemently opposes defunding the police, stripping the police of insurance that is afforded to all city workers, closing Rikers and moving prisons to local neighborhoods. Sliwa also stands alone in opposition to the City of Yes and to Local Law 97.
So generally, Cuomo and Mamdani hold very similar positions with the exception that Cuomo does not support the ideology behind Islamic extremism.
In my opinion Mamdani is clearly an antisemite who supports Global Intifada because he refuses to denounce such practices. He also refuses to denounce Hamas or to support the existence of the only Jewish state surrounded by many countries that harassed, evicted or killed their existing Jewish population. He has threatened to arrest the Prime Minister of Israel but apparently would welcome to New York the Mullahs of Iran and the leaders of Hamas. He has been known to take selfies with Ugandan leaders who introduced and implemented legislation that promotes the death penalty for lifestyles such as homosexuality and for all other non-traditional sexual relationships and alternative gender identifications.
It’s noteworthy to mention that, during the debates, both Cuomo and Mamdani proudly promised to fight Trump. This pathetic strategy is very different from the stance that Mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa described, emphasizing negotiating with the president to achieve a balance of policies that are good for Americans and that greatly benefit New York City residents.
Given the above, I have decided that the new face of the democrat party is at least more forthright in representing the socialist, the antisemitic and the anti-American ideologies of the Democratic party. At least with Mamdani, we know exactly who and what we’re dealing with – an extreme progressive, Marxist, Communist who hates the USA, Jews and embraces organizations that chant, kill the infidels. For those college and high school students who may not know this, an infidel is anyone who doesn’t believe in and doesn’t practice Islam in a prescribed manner.
If elected and based on the plans he has presented to the public, it appears that Mamdani will take steps to continue the steady decline of our city. If New Yorkers vote for the likes of Cuomo or Mandani, the damage they leave behind will be attributable to the voters who put them in office.
It is not clear if what Mamdani says is what he will do. But here are my best guesses on this matter: Higher rents for those who earn a salary including seniors who receive monthly social security checks; substantial raises in costs for condominium and cooperative owners to pay for full conversions from gas to electric and increases for all real-estate owners in the form of property taxes; less prisoners in jail and more of them let loose on the streets hurting you and your children; because Mamdani is planning to invest millions of dollars in affirming care, more children in NYC will be buying into the propaganda on transitioning from their gender of birth to their gender by identification. You may have missed that the democrats and voters in NYS have passed legislation that clearly indicates that parents do not have rights to interfere with affirming care of their children.
Also, there will be a coordinated effort by Mamdani and the UFT to wage war against charter schools and to firmly cap their expansion, regardless of the thousands of children and their parents who are on a waiting list for admission. In addition, more indoctrination in the schools, perhaps justifying Hamas as freedom fighters and Israel and the United States as colonizers. Don’t be surprised if an increasing number of students believe that the Holocaust was just a farce.
The state education department, along with the unions, are doing their very best to shield students from standardized testing. With little or no measures of accountability except for subjective criteria, it will be difficult to determine student progress. No need to worry though; according to the powers that preside over the school system, you can be confident that they will report that all the children are doing just fine.
Taxes on earners will go up as well as other indices such as sales tax, city tax, state tax and perhaps even a tax on the taxes. Afterall, when the rich and upper middle class flee the city for more favorable living and earning conditions, it will be up to the diminishing middle class to shoulder the responsibility of making their earnings available for redistribution to the needy and to the ever-growing stream of illegal aliens into our marvellous sanctuary city.
Reasonably, even illegal aliens need free hotels, culturally appropriate food, new clothes, dry cleaning, laundry services, social security and health care and free education. So, kiss-goodbye reduced class size and welcome all discretionary and redirected funds to English as a Second Language initiatives.
In my opinion, with illegal aliens on the social security payroll and on the Medicare and Medicaid caseloads, anticipated reductions in Social Security benefits and health-care services may move back from 2034 to 2030. I also suggest that you don’t delay going to the doctor because your social security funds and health benefits may go bust sooner than later.
If you vote for Mamdani or for Cuomo, don’t complain when no cash bail continues, when unrehabilitated prisoners are released because Mamdani believes that the responsibility for crime is with the society and not with the individual. Along these lines, Mamdani refers to crime as a social construct. Also, as expected, Cuomo takes no responsibility for the city’s crime, for the homeless situation and for the invasion of illegal aliens in New York City. It is not surprising that Cuomo blames Trump for all of Cuomo’s missteps and devastating decisions. With these two candidates do you really have any choice? If either Mamdani or Cuomo become the mayor, our city will suffer. If you vote for either one of them, you will be complicit in the downfall of our city. Better to fight it than to join it. Given all the above, win or lose, I strongly endorse Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa for New York City Mayor.
