“Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist and the Democratic nominee, will be New York City’s next mayor, after trouncing former Governor Andrew Cuomo in a primary and general election double whammy. ‘The working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands,’ Mamdani told a roaring crowd at his victory party in Brooklyn. ‘Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor; palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars; knuckles scarred with kitchen burns — these are not hands that have been allowed to hold power. And yet, over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater. Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it… We have toppled a political dynasty.’ But the fight is just beginning.” (11/05/25)
“President Donald Trump moved Monday to blunt the pain Democrats are inflicting on food-stamp families with their government shutdown, which will be the longest ever if it continues through Wednesday. Rather than cut off payments after the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ran out of cash this weekend, Trump & Co. will cover at least partial benefits, using money from a contingency fund meant for food during natural disasters. The president doesn’t want to see the 42 million Americans who depend on food stamps have to struggle any more than necessary — plus, as ever, he’s complying with valid court orders directing the payments to continue (even if the judges in question are likely to be overruled by higher courts). ‘President Trump wants to make sure that people get their food benefit,’ noted Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday.” (11/03/25)
“Donald Trump hates Antifa. He hates late-night TV hosts, Democratic-controlled cities, and anyone who has ever challenged him in court. As of October, he officially hates the Nobel committee for not giving him a peace prize, despite his efforts to strong-arm its members into voting for him. The president has gone after everyone he thinks has ever done him wrong. But there is a Venn diagram to his vendettas, an overlap in his circle of obsessions. Map out his attacks, subtracting the purely personal and the primarily partisan, and you’ll see that they converge on a profound disgust for the liberal international order. That Trump has personally profited from that very global order — his portfolio of international real estate, his business’s reliance on global supply chains, the unacknowledged benefits he’s accrued from the international rule of law — makes no difference.” (11/04/25)
“What if Sen. Bernie Sanders is right and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is wrong? What if the AI revolution causes mass layoffs of American workers, as the Vermont senator warned in a recent Fox News op-ed? And what if Powell is wrong that the softening labor market is due primarily to supply issues — lower immigration and a lower labor participation rate — rather than AI-produced ‘efficiencies?’ What will be the response of policymakers? What should it be? AI will soon become a political battleground. Democratic socialist Sanders, ever the class warrior, has already questioned whether AI will help all Americans or ‘only a handful of billionaires.’ Like the trade deals that sent millions of jobs overseas, Sanders worries that the massive investment flowing into AI could result in up to 100 million Americans losing their jobs over the next decade. He could be right; imagine the repercussions.” (11/04/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Israeli settlers were filmed torturing lambs which belonged to Palestinians in the West Bank. Gouged their eyes out. Smashed them with cinder blocks. Beat them to death in front of their mothers. Lambs. It’s not the most evil thing the Israelis have done. Not by a long shot. Hell, all of human civilization subjects animals to cruel abuses every minute of every day through the horrors of factory farming. But this particular incident shines a special sort of light into exactly what’s going on behind Israeli eyes over there in that sadistic society. Think about the hatred and savagery you’d need to summon up within yourself to gouge the eyes out of a living baby sheep. Think about the kind of person you’d have to become to do something like that to an innocent creature. Those lambs didn’t know they were Palestinian.” (11/04/25)
“Asserting that Christians in Nigeria face ‘an existential threat,’ President Donald Trump signaled over the weekend that the United States military might go into Africa’s most populous country ‘with guns-a-blazing.’ While his depiction of the situation is highly simplified, it could at least draw attention to the political and economic issues that have driven extremist insurgencies in Nigeria as well as in nearby nations. One issue is that the violence committed by militant groups, many of which operate in the name of Islam, has hit people of different faiths. ‘Terror groups … have attacked mosques and churches alike, killing both imams and pastors, Muslims and Christians, without distinction,’ noted The Punch, a Nigerian news daily. ‘Portraying these conflicts as a one-sided religious debate and advocacy ignores the broader socio-economic and environmental pressures … that drive violence.'” (11/03/25)
“Here’s something for New York City residents to consider as they vote for Mayor, and for observers outside New York to consider as they watch the vote count: for the most part, Zohran Mamdani’s plans for the city are surprisingly affordable. Despite the frantic tone of mainstream media coverage (and the revolutionary overtones of the phrase ‘democratic socialist’) most of Mamdani’s agenda could be accomplished at minimal cost to the city. The only exception is his plan for free universal childcare, whose costs may have been overstated by his own campaign. Mamdani has proposed opening five city-owned grocery stores in the city, at a cost of $60 million. These stores would use city-owned property, which means they wouldn’t have to pay rent, and would sell the food at operating cost without making a profit. Would it work? Military commissaries are successful. So is Costco, which operates a trimmed-down, ‘bare bones’ store model.” (11/04/25)
“You’ve probably heard by now the blockbuster news that Microsoft founder Bill Gates, one of the richest people to ever walk the planet, has had a change of heart on climate change. For several decades, Gates poured billions of dollars into the climate-industrial complex and was howling that the end is nigh unless we stop using fossil fuels, cars, air conditioning and general anesthesia. Now, he says he rejects the ‘doomsday’ predictions of the more extreme global warming prophets. Some conservatives have snuffed that Gates has shifted his position on climate change because he and Microsoft have invested heavily in energy-intensive data centers. What Gates has done is courageous and praiseworthy. There are not many people of his stature who will admit that they were wrong. Al Gore certainly hasn’t. My wife says I never do.” (11/04/25)
“Donald Trump wants the government shutdown, which today ties the record for the longest in American history, to end. You might say he’s desperate for it to end, because he’s gone back to the well of demanding the elimination of the Senate filibuster, so Republicans can pass government funding themselves. Killing the filibuster would be a great thing for the country and the world, but it also appears to be the one area where Republicans routinely defy their president, so I’m not holding my breath. But the context of Trump seeking an escape hatch is worth exploring. If the president were confident that his strategy to make the shutdown painful for Democrats and force them into submission was working for him, his attitude would be far different. Yet his tactics have backfired.” (11/04/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Massacre fetishist Lindsey Graham said ‘Trump is my favorite president’ because ‘we’re killing all the right people and we’re cutting your taxes’ during a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Summit on Friday. ‘We’ve run out of bombs; we didn’t run out of bombs in World War II,’ the senator said. If Lindsey Graham ever gushed about me this effusively for any reason I think I would have to shave my head and join a convent or something, because it would be a clear and undeniable sign that I had been living my whole entire life completely wrong. It says a lot about how much of a warmonger Trump has become that he himself actually slammed Lindsey Graham repeatedly during his first crack at the presidency for being such a firebreathing war slut.” (11/03/25)
