Lobenthal.com

Trump’s hands clawed the air weirdly as he bellowed greetings last night to his glad-to-be-fleeced club members. As Ben Meiselas points out, his splayed hands–in evidence when he fell asleep in the Oval Office yesterday–now seem to fall naturally into positions reminiscent of the cerebral palsy victims he mocked on the campaign trail in 2016.

This is the man MAGA worships as a virile superhero.

This is the man whom The New York Times complimented in 2024 on his allegedly ever-youthful appearance.

Bari Wess is turning CBS “News” into a fully-integrated propaganda arm of the White House.

According to the Washington Post, “Some newsroom employees say Weiss’s sensibility has begun to shape editorial operations at the network.” Indeed.

In his feeble, addled voice, Trump summons his cognition to launch a new attack on SNAP recipients a la Reagan’s “Welfare Queens” defamation.

How can Cornell president Michael Kotlikoff expect to command any respect after he bends over to service Trump’s extortion?

Of course they are congratulating him today.

You cannot call yourself a “progressive,” then vote to give billionaire developers carte blanche.

It looks like we’re going to see another bait-and-switch administration a la De Blasio, which is not surprising given that Mamdani has chosen to partner with De Blasio’s hacks.

Imagine the uproar if Biden had chosen to make himself up this way.

And imagine the uproar if Biden had put on the kind of moth eaten spectacle that Trump did today. As Aaron Rupar tweets, “Hannity would immediately start anchoring special coverage and the New York Times would fire up a live blog breaking down every syllable.”

It didn’t take long: after not endorsing the monstrous ballot referendums, at the very last moment he did, thus perhaps ensuring their passage.

They will result in less affordable housing, not more, and if he is gullible enough to think otherwise, he needs to wise sup and fast. You have got to do better, Mr. Mayor Elect. You cannot say that are working to make the city more affordable while endorsing the developers’ demands that they be allowed to build more and more and bigger and bigger luxury towers. You cannot call yourself a progressive and be a developers’ pawn.

This is what comes from Mamdani allowing himself to be steered by so many DeBlasio advisors.

In his victory speech, Mamdani might just as well have said, “New York Developers: This City Belongs to You”

He needs to throw out the DeBlasio crew as fast as possible.

Their power has just been eviscerated by the Adams/developers scam ratified yesterday by New Yorkers blitzed with billionaire-funded propaganda about these ballot issues. The old “affordable housing” nag was led once more around the track. These atrocious measures will, in fact, ensure that housing in NYC is more unaffordable than ever.

This is the City Council’s reward for its years of obsequious yea-saying to every up zoning scheme that has advanced the monstrous overdevelopment and the ever-rising cost-of-living in NYC.

Good-bye City Council, hello mayoral and developer fiat.

FROM VILLAGE PRESERVATION:
“NYC voters approved ballot measures 2,3, and 4, which permanently hand unilateral decision-making authority to the Mayor on an incredibly broad range of land use decisions, removing the City Council and by extension the public from having a real say in these decisions. The well-funded campaign to support these measures successfully convinced a majority of voters they would improve affordability in our city, when in fact they would open the door to more rapid gentrification, less affordability, fewer investments in infrastructure to support new development, fewer protections for tenants and small businesses, and more corrupt, closed-door decision-making.”

The developers’ take over of New York City is virtually complete. We will see if Mamdani can/will do anything to reverse it. Unless he can, this is a city on its way out.

At Common Dreams, Jon Queally salutes Mamdani’s victory as “a new kind of politics that puts the needs of working people at the center after decades of failed leadership that put corporate interests and the desires of the wealthiest first.”