Greenland is now shifted from the US European Command area of responsibility to the US Northern Command area of responsibility. The change will strengthen the defense of the US homeland and contribute to deepening relationships with Arctic allies, according to Pentagon’s chief spokesperson.

The US Northern Command is taking over command of US military operations in and around Greenland from the US European Command. The shift was initiated after an order from US President Donald Trump, as informed by the US Department of Defense last week.

“Consistent with the President’s intent and the Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance, this change will strengthen the Joint Force’s ability to defend the U.S. homeland, contributing to a more robust defense of the western hemisphere and deepening relationships with Arctic allies and partners,” states Sean Parnell, Chief Pentagon Spokesperson.

This measure takes place in connection with a review of the US command structure and may be based on military considerations. At the same time, it sparks attention due to Trump’s repeated demands for US control over Greenland and the fact that he has not ruled out the use of military force to attain this.

In a recent congressional hearing, the US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, was asked several questions on whether the Pentagon has plans to take Greenland and Panama with force, to which he avoided a direct reply.

“Our job at the Defense Department is to have plans for any contingency,” said Hegseth.

Could lead to increased investments

Greenland is geographically a central part of the North American Arctic and crucial to the US homeland defense. The transfer of the island to the US reflects these circumstances and enables organizational clarity on homeland defense, former US DoD Deputy Assistant Secretary Iris Ferguson comments on Linkedin.

The US has the space base Pituffik (formerly known as Thule Air Station) at Greenland’s northwestern coast. It serves a significant role within missile warning, missile defense, and space surveillance operations.

“This reassignment could elevate Greenland’s visibility in US defense planning, potentially bringing stronger investment and support for trilateral cooperation with Denmark and Greenland,” Ferguson writes.

Warns against sable rattling

At the same time, Ferguson is clear on what she believes the shift concerning Greenland should not entail:

“The US and Denmark (which includes Greenland) are all members of NATO. Article 1 of the NATO charter commits us to refraining from the threat or use of force. As Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) said recently, “I sure as hell hope it’s not” a signal of anything more aggressive. That’s a sentiment we should all share,” she emphasizes, referring to the aforementioned congressional hearing with Hegseth.

Secondly, the measure should not entail marginalization of Denmark, underlines Ferguson.

“Denmark remains a key Arctic and NATO ally. Strategic cohesion in the region has been hard-won, and must be preserved. Reassigning Greenland should not come at the expense of trusted partnership,” she states and continues:

“Shifts like this require more than internal reorganization. They require clear communication and sustained diplomacy, with Denmark, with Greenland, and with our NATO partners. Transparency and intent matter.”

Astri Edvardsen (Birgitte Annie Hansen, translation)

In a troubling revelation from Vienna, a concerned grandparent, Bernhard K., has exposed a growing crisis in Austria’s kindergartens. Speaking to the Austrian news outlet Heute, he described the stark reality at his grandson’s school, where only three of 25 classmates are fluent German speakers.

During breaks and after-school activities, the children revert to Arabic, leaving his grandson isolated. When asked how the boy copes, Bernhard’s response was shocking: “He’s trying to learn Arabic! How else is he supposed to communicate with his schoolmates?”

This is not an isolated incident but a symptom of a broader demographic shift. According to the Institute for Family Research, one in five children under 18 in Austria, roughly 340,000, lacks an Austrian passport.

Meanwhile, the number of native Austrian youths has plummeted from 1.6 million to 1.2 million. The rapid transformation is reshaping the nation’s schools and threatening the cultural fabric of its communities.

As The Gateway Pundit has previously reported, Muslims have now become the largest religious group in Vienna’s compulsory schools, comprising a striking 41.2% of all students across primary, secondary, and vocational education levels.

Meanwhile, just 34.5% of students now identify as Christian (17.5% Catholic and 14.5% Orthodox), more than 23% have no religious affiliation, and the remaining minority includes Buddhists (0.2%), Jews (0.1%), and others (0.9%).

“This is no longer immigration. This is displacement,” said Maximilian Weinzierl, national council member and leader of the FPÖ’s youth wing. “41.2% of Muslim students—that’s no longer a minority, that’s the new majority. What we as the FPÖ have been warning about for decades, but which was always dismissed as right-wing scaremongering, is now reality: Immigration has completely overrun our country.”

The situation in Vienna’s kindergartens is likely widespread. Professor Bernhard Koch of the Pedagogical University of Tirol is awaiting a critical report from Statistics Austria, expected to reveal how many kindergarten groups now have more than 33% or 50% non-native German speakers.

Koch suspects the data will confirm his fears that German-speaking children are becoming such a minority that “integration” has become a hollow buzzword.

In an interview with Heute, Koch outlined the troubling dynamic driving this shift. “Immigrants settle in areas where other people from the same country of origin have already settled,” he explained. “Long-established residents withdraw from these rooms.

Kindergartens do not become more diverse with regard to the educational background of the parents, but more homogeneous—often in a foreign language”. This pattern, he warns, is eroding the educational environment for native Austrians.

The consequences of an uncontrolled influx of newcomers have led to worsening educational outcomes for native children and a growing sense of alienation in their own communities.

The upcoming Statistics Austria report could serve as a wake-up call for lawmakers, who must act quickly to address this crisis before Austria’s cultural and educational heritage is irreparably lost.

Robert Semonsen, Gateway Pundit

I notice a lot of people saying, “I don’t have the motivation” to do such-and-such. Egged on by the psychiatric industry and our ridiculous culture, they look at motivation as something given to them. That’s not motivation. You can’t skip your way to the Wizard of Oz and then ask the Wizard, “Will you give me some motivation, please?” Motivation happens only when you (1) define a purpose for yourself, and (2) make a commitment to sticking to your purpose, even when you don’t feel like it. If you don’t do these things at a minimum, then nothing else is going to save you.

Nobody is coming to rescue you. Only YOU can rescue you. Granted, someone can, if they choose, rescue you from a fire or a car accident. But nobody can or will give you a reason for getting up in the morning. You will have to find — and choose — a purpose for yourself.

If you struggle with finding a purpose, read Viktor Frankel’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” and Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” Two inspiring and provocative books that will leave you in a different mindset from where you started.

Michael J. Hurd

President Donald Trump said Monday he was not speaking to Iran and was not offering the country “anything,” and he reiterated his assertion the United States had “totally obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

“Tell phony Democrat Senator Chris Coons that I am not offering Iran anything, unlike Obama, who paid them $Billions under the stupid ‘road to a Nuclear Weapon’ JCPOA (which would now be expired!), nor am I even talking to them since we totally obliterated their nuclear facilities,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

Trump on Friday dismissed media reports that said his administration had discussed possibly helping Iran access as much as $30 billion to build a civilian-energy-producing nuclear program.

The criticism of Coons might have been targeted at his comments Sunday in a televised interview where Coons claimed Trump was offering Iran a deal akin to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed during former President Barack Obama’s administration and decertified in the first Trump administration because of evidence Iran was enriching uranium outside of the JCPOA’s permitted limits.

Trump was “moving toward negotiation offering around a deal that looks somewhat similar to the Iran deal” offered Obama, Coons claimed, drawing the Trump rebuke above.rump: Not Offering Iran ‘Anything,’ Not Speaking to Tehran. 

Only 36% of Democrats say they’re “extremely” or “very” proud to be American, according to a new Gallup poll, reflecting a dramatic decline in national pride that’s also clear among young people.

The findings are a stark illustration of how many — but not all — Americans have felt less of a sense of pride in their country over the past decade. The split between Democrats and Republicans, at 56 percentage points, is at its widest since 2001. That includes all four years of Republican President Donald Trump’s first term.

Only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults who are part of Generation Z, which is defined as those born from 1997 to 2012, expressed a high level of pride in being American in Gallup surveys conducted in the past five years, on average. That’s compared with about 6 in 10 Millennials — those born between 1980 and 1996 — and at least 7 in 10 U.S. adults in older generations.

“Each generation is less patriotic than the prior generation, and Gen Z is definitely much lower than anybody else,” said Jeffrey Jones, a senior editor at Gallup. “But even among the older generations, we see that they’re less patriotic than the ones before them, and they’ve become less patriotic over time. That’s primarily driven by Democrats within those generations.”

America’s decline in national pride has been a slow erosion, with a steady downtick in Gallup’s data since January 2001, when the question was first asked.

Even during the tumultuous early years of the Iraq War, the vast majority of U.S. adults, whether Republican or Democrat, said they were “extremely” or “very” proud to be American. At that point, about 9 in 10 were “extremely” or “very” proud to be American. That remained high in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but the consensus around American pride slipped in the years that followed, dropping to about 8 in 10 in 2006 and continuing a gradual decline.

Now, 58% of U.S. adults say that, in a downward shift that’s been driven almost entirely by Democrats and independents. The vast majority of Republicans continue to say they’re proud to be American.

Independents’ pride in their national identity hit a new low in the most recent survey, at 53%, largely following that pattern of gradual decline.

Democrats’ diminished pride in being American is more clearly linked to Trump’s time in office. When Trump first entered the White House, in 2017, about two-thirds of Democrats said they were proud to be American. That had fallen to 42% by 2020, just before Trump lost reelection to Democrat Joe Biden.

But while Democrats’ sense of national pride rebounded when Biden took office, it didn’t go back to its pre-Trump 

“It’s not just a Trump story,” Jones said. “Something else is going on, and I think it’s just younger generations coming in and not being as patriotic as older people.”

Other recent polling shows that Democrats and independents are less likely than Republicans to say that expressing patriotism is important or to feel a sense of pride in their national leaders.

Nearly 9 in 10 Republicans in a 2024 SSRS poll said they believed patriotism has a positive impact on the United States, with Democrats more divided: 45% said patriotism had a positive impact on the country, while 37% said it was negative.

But a more general sense of discontent was clear on both sides of the aisle earlier this year, when a CNN/SSRS poll found that fewer than 1 in 10 Democrats and Republicans said “proud” described the way they felt about politics in America today.

In that survey, most Americans across the political spectrum said they were “disappointed” or “frustrated” with the country’s politics.

Few realize that one of Islamic communist Zohran Mamdani’s largest backers was a little-known PAC called “Leaders We Deserve,” spearheaded by leftist, anti-gun antagonist David Hogg and Kevin Lata, Rep. Maxwell Frost’s (D-FL) former campaign manager.

Few realize that one of Islamic communist Zohran Mamdani’s largest backers was a little-known PAC called “Leaders We Deserve,” spearheaded by leftist, anti-gun antagonist David Hogg and Kevin Lata, Rep. Maxwell Frost’s (D-FL) former campaign manager.

Hogg takes communism up a notch..

Touted on their site “as a grassroots organization dedicated to electing young progressives to Congress and State Legislatures across the country to help defeat the far-right agenda and advance a progressive vision for the future,” it appears to be a communist organization that is recruiting young voters to further Marxism.

…

The group is being advised by Democrats, such as Frost, Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Lauren Underwood (D-IL), and Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones. Jones was briefly expelled from his state legislature for leading a protest on the House floor in favor of gun control. The PAC has pledged to spend millions to oust Democratic incumbents it considers ineffective.

All-in for Mamdani in New York City..

Hogg’s PAC was the top donor to one of the leading outside groups backing Mamdani in New York City, according to NBC News, just as CAIR was.

“Leaders We Deserve” endorsed Mamdani ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic primary.

“We are here talking to voters on the third day of early voting,” Democratic Socialist Mamdani stated in a video on X after Mamdani and Hogg introduced themselves. “And we’re so excited to let them know that our campaign has just been endorsed by Leaders We Deserve.”

“We’re really excited to support the campaign here to help make New York City affordable, help make sure that buses are faster and free at the same time, and that no New Yorker has to pay for childcare,” Hogg proclaimed in the video, spouting sheer communist talking points.

Mamdani and Hogg appeared to be thick as thieves, with the New York City Democratic mayoral candidate posing with Hogg during his campaign.

Hogg’s first endorsement since getting the boot at the DNC..

Hogg’s endorsement of Mamdani (who is a Shia Muslim Twelver) is his first one since getting drummed out as Democratic National Committee Chairman, according to The Hill.

According to CNN, “Hogg was at Mamdani’s Election Night party Tuesday. So was Ella Emhoff, stepdaughter of the party’s most recent presidential nominee, former Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Hell Gate wrote:

It was a little surreal to see Kal Penn, Ella Emhoff, David Hogg, Anand Giridharadas, Kareem Rahma, Lina Kahn, Zephyr Teachout, and Cynthia Nixon, to name a few, all in the same room. These aren’t A-list movie stars (sorry, Kal) or former presidents, but they are prominent members of the left-of-center firmament, who are capable of marshalling millions of eyeballs to a cause—in this case, getting Mamdani elected and overturning the establishment, and the candidate it spent tens of millions of dollars to get elected.

Financing Marxists through “Leaders We Deserve”..

It’s interesting to note that “Leaders We Deserve” raised $11,900,077 in the 2023-24 cycle and spent $10,974,173, according to OpenSecrets. That was their first year in existence, and they started out with $0 on hand. That’s a lot of money raised out of nowhere for a new group.

Out of all that money, only $12,600 went to federal candidates. Sarah McBride (D-DE) received $6,000, Maxwell Frost (D-FL) received $3,300, and Katrina Shankland (D-WI) received $3,300.

The PAC also donated to the following:

Ban Assault Weapons Now PAC — $24,000

Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC — $10,000

Latino Victory Fund — $5,000

Committee for Hispanic Causes – BOLD PAC — $5,000

Democratic Executive Cmte of Florida — $5,000

Democratic Party of Nebraska — $5,000

A Love Supreme PAC (Affiliate: Maxwell Frost (D-FL) — $3,300

Democratic Party of Texas — $2,500

PACS/Party Committees that contributed to “Leaders We Deserve” included:

Ban Assault Weapons Now PAC — $31,500 House Majority PAC — $25,000

Democratic Victory PAC — $10,000

Women for American Values & Ethics — $6,250

Democratic Women of the South Orange County — $1,000

According to OpenSecrets, Individual donors gave 4,167 large ($200+) contributions to the PAC in the 2023-2024 election cycle.

Although it is hard to tell if an individual is connected to a shadowy group, some of those are interesting. Barbara Weitz, who appears to be part of the Board of Regents for the University of Nebraska System, donated $250,000. The WELLNESS ADVOCACY FUND donated $200,000. Ronald Conway of SVA (an angel investor) also donated $400,000. The amounts descend from there.

Expenditures for the PAC can be found here, which does show the PAC contributed $1,605,024 to state and local candidates, $740,000 to state and local parties, and $44,800 to committees.

Unsurprisingly, Act Blue, which is under congressional scrutiny right now, collects donations for “Leaders We Deserve.”

Hogg has BIG plans..

Hogg has announced his group will spend $20 million to elect young progressive leaders such as Mamdani.

“It’s gonna be a fun next couple years,” the 26-year-old gun control activist wrote on X, according to The Hill.

That’s one way to put it, as New York City is poised to slide into a communist hellhole of Democrats’ making.

Hogg also wrote, “Cuomo. Is. Cooked.” And added, “And so is the establishment that brought us here.”

It isn’t clear where Hogg’s PAC is getting all its funding, but the shadowy group is certainly using it to full effect, and it is connected to the anti-gun movement.

Mamdani is the first of many Democratic Socialists who will now be pushed into higher positions of power as they look to refashion the Republic into a Marxist utopia. His radical family background and ties speak for themselves.

Many have laughed at Hogg over the years on both sides of the political aisle. It turns out he’s much more dangerous than many thought he was.

Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, RAIR Foundation

By Andrea Widburg

Zohran Mamdani, the Democrat party’s candidate for mayor of New York, has attracted attention for the fact that he’s a hardcore communist. However, his religious beliefs deserve some attention, too.

First, there’s the fact that he’s a Shia Muslim who is affiliated with the Twelver Branch that drives the Iranian mullahs. Back in 2006, the late Bernard Lewis wrote about this ideology when he explained why the mullahs are not necessarily amenable to the doctrine of mutually assured destruction:

In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time — Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined.

[snip]

A passage from the Ayatollah Khomeini, quoted in an 11th-grade Iranian schoolbook, is revealing. “I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [i.e., the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another’s hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours.”

The Twelvers don’t fear Armageddon; they embrace it.

It’s unclear how fervent Mamdani’s beliefs are, especially given his Marxism. He may be an atheist who just lays claim to that identity for political advancement. Or he could be a true believer practicing Taqiya (dissimulation) against the West. Or, perhaps, he occupies a middle ground where he doesn’t believe in a fiery nuclear Armageddon. Simply bringing down the West from within may be enough.

The end is nigh.

That seems to be the message this week from the three liberal justices at the Supreme Court when faced with the nightmarish prospect of parents being able to remove their young children from mandatory classes on gay, lesbian and transgender material.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor declared that there “will be chaos for this nation’s public schools” and both education and children will “suffer” if parents are allowed to opt their children out of these lessons. She also worried about the “chilling effect” of the ruling, which would make schools more hesitant to offer such classes in the future. It was a particularly curious concern, since parents would like teachers to focus more on core subjects and show greater restraint in pursuing social agendas…. the liberal justices declared that “the damage to America’s public education system will be profound” and “threatens the very essence of public education.”

Jonathan Turley

Even before competition became fierce among the 11 eventual Democratic contenders, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams dropped out to run for reelection as an independent when early polling showed that he would probably lose the nomination to disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo.

Then, on Tuesday, Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old New York state assemblyman, stunningly defeated Cuomo, by 43 percent to 36 percent. The margin was so high that Mamdani did not have to rely, as was widely predicted, on the city’s bizarre ranked-choice voting system, introduced in 2021, which allows voters to select multiple candidates in order of preference and thus amalgamate support for underperforming candidates.

Cuomo was long favored to win the primary despite his scandal-plagued record. He racked up high-profile endorsements, secured millions in campaign contributions, and pledged a law-and-order approach to city governance. It was not enough.

Mamdani swept the former governor aside through a grass-roots campaign that promised affordable housing, free bus transportation, and other attention-grabbing socioeconomic pledges that appealed to dissatisfied younger voters, struggling immigrants, and guilty progressive elites. Mamdani was also perfectly situated to benefit from the Democrats’ increasingly vituperative intergenerational civil war, which has pitched the party’s younger and more racially diverse progressive faction against its more moderate gerontocratic and almost entirely white leadership.

Mamdani’s campaign thus became an issue of national importance, scoring endorsements from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the two most important national progressive leaders, while Cuomo, 67, looked like the corrupt creature of a decrepit old guard.

The race between Mamdani and Cuomo was bitter enough that both said that they, too, would run as independents if they lost the Democratic primary, mainly to deny each other ultimate victory. Cuomo has confirmed to The New York Times that he is still considering an independent run.

If he follows through, New York City’s leftist voters will be divided into three rival groups supporting Mamdani as the official Democratic candidate, Adams as the incumbent mayor, and Cuomo as an unreconciled challenger to both.

All three camps have weaknesses that will alienate broad blocks of Democratic voters. Mamdani, a self-professed “anti-Zionist” and “democratic socialist,” is widely perceived as an anti-Semite and political radical whose policies would be prejudiced and economically ruinous.

Cuomo would presumably retain support from the powerful but unpopular Democratic establishment while still trying to live down his bail reform policies, which led to New York City’s recent massive crime surge, his pandemic-era public health directives that are widely believed to have caused mass death among New York’s elderly, his humiliating 2021 resignation as governor following numerous sexual harassment claims, and other scandals.

Adams, rated the least popular mayor in city history, has been mired in corruption allegations that led to his criminal indictment—the first of a sitting New York mayor—by Joe Biden’s Justice Department, and then to allegations of a quid pro quo in which Donald Trump’s Justice Department dropped the charges, possibly in exchange for responsible law and immigration policy enforcement by Adams.

These three deeply flawed candidates could easily cancel each other out. Progressives loathe both Adams and Cuomo as enforcers of a corrupt status quo and will certainly stick with Mamdani.

Adams and Cuomo supporters regard Mamdani as a dangerous and inexperienced radical, and would split centrist Democrats, whose main issues are crime and business growth. Adams remains popular among blacks, Hispanics, and an important segment of city businessowners, while Cuomo would retain blue-collar Democrats, older voters, and Catholics. Mamdani will continue to win immigrants and younger voters but lose many Jews and most, if not all, moderates. Despite Mamdani’s surprise victory, his primary win rests on a mere 43 percent plurality, meaning that 57 percent of New York Democrats voted for someone else in a contest where voters already tend to skew further to the activist left than they do in general elections.

The Republicans have the discreet advantage of unity. Unlike the Democrats, they have one uncontested candidate, Curtis Sliwa, a radio talk show host who in the 1970s famously founded the Guardian Angels, a civic organization to fight crime. Sliwa was the GOP candidate in 2021, when he lost to Adams by nearly 40 points. Adams, however, was then running unchallenged on the left, on what many believed to be a promising professional record as a former transit cop and New York City police captain, and as a black man on the heels of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests.

Sliwa was an anti-Trump Republican who had just disaffiliated from New York’s small centrist Reform party. In the years since, the electorate largely soured on Adams and Sliwa reentered the Republican fold with strong and dramatically more relevant anti-crime credentials. Meanwhile, Trump doubled his voting base in New York City from 15 percent in 2020 to 30 percent in 2024, with his greatest advances among minorities and in the outer boroughs, where Sliwa was strongest in the 2021 mayoral race.

Sliwa has some foibles and eccentricities, but they pale in comparison to the massive deficiencies present in the Democratic field. In any case, it is inconceivable that Trump’s 2024 voters would now drift back to uninspiring Democratic candidates.

If Sliwa can match Trump’s numbers from 2024 and win over even a small percentage of anti-crime Democrats, it is entirely conceivable that he could win the mayor’s office by a plurality that beats out a non-Republican bloc divided among Mamdani, Adams, and Cuomo. It would be the first mayoral victory by plurality since John Lindsay prevailed in a three-way race in 1969, but a low bar above the three Democrats is all Sliwa would have to 

New York City has not had a Republican mayor since 2007, when Michael Bloomberg left the GOP to finish his remaining time in office as an independent. Republican fortunes in the traditionally left-leaning city could change this year, however, as New York’s Democratic establishment reels from its fractured primary process.

Even before competition became fierce among the 11 eventual Democratic contenders, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams dropped out to run for reelection as an independent when early polling showed that he would probably lose the nomination to disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo.

Then, on Tuesday, Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old New York state assemblyman, stunningly defeated Cuomo, by 43 percent to 36 percent. The margin was so high that Mamdani did not have to rely, as was widely predicted, on the city’s bizarre ranked-choice voting system, introduced in 2021, which allows voters to select multiple candidates in order of preference and thus amalgamate support for underperforming candidates.

Cuomo was long favored to win the primary despite his scandal-plagued record. He racked up high-profile endorsements, secured millions in campaign contributions, and pledged a law-and-order approach to city governance. It was not enough.

Mamdani swept the former governor aside through a grass-roots campaign that promised affordable housing, free bus transportation, and other attention-grabbing socioeconomic pledges that appealed to dissatisfied younger voters, struggling immigrants, and guilty progressive elites. Mamdani was also perfectly situated to benefit from the Democrats’ increasingly vituperative intergenerational civil war, which has pitched the party’s younger and more racially diverse progressive faction against its more moderate gerontocratic and almost entirely white leadership.

Mamdani’s campaign thus became an issue of national importance, scoring endorsements from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the two most important national progressive leaders, while Cuomo, 67, looked like the corrupt creature of a decrepit old guard.

The race between Mamdani and Cuomo was bitter enough that both said that they, too, would run as independents if they lost the Democratic primary, mainly to deny each other ultimate victory. Cuomo has confirmed to The New York Times that he is still considering an independent run.

If he follows through, New York City’s leftist voters will be divided into three rival groups supporting Mamdani as the official Democratic candidate, Adams as the incumbent mayor, and Cuomo as an unreconciled challenger to both.

All three camps have weaknesses that will alienate broad blocks of Democratic voters. Mamdani, a self-professed “anti-Zionist” and “democratic socialist,” is widely perceived as an anti-Semite and political radical whose policies would be prejudiced and economically ruinous.

Cuomo would presumably retain support from the powerful but unpopular Democratic establishment while still trying to live down his bail reform policies, which led to New York City’s recent massive crime surge, his pandemic-era public health directives that are widely believed to have caused mass death among New York’s elderly, his humiliating 2021 resignation as governor following numerous sexual harassment claims, and other scandals.

Adams, rated the least popular mayor in city history, has been mired in corruption allegations that led to his criminal indictment—the first of a sitting New York mayor—by Joe Biden’s Justice Department, and then to allegations of a quid pro quo in which Donald Trump’s Justice Department dropped the charges, possibly in exchange for responsible law and immigration policy enforcement by Adams.

These three deeply flawed candidates could easily cancel each other out. Progressives loathe both Adams and Cuomo as enforcers of a corrupt status quo and will certainly stick with Mamdani.

Adams and Cuomo supporters regard Mamdani as a dangerous and inexperienced radical, and would split centrist Democrats, whose main issues are crime and business growth. Adams remains popular among blacks, Hispanics, and an important segment of city businessowners, while Cuomo would retain blue-collar Democrats, older voters, and Catholics. Mamdani will continue to win immigrants and younger voters but lose many Jews and most, if not all, moderates. Despite Mamdani’s surprise victory, his primary win rests on a mere 43 percent plurality, meaning that 57 percent of New York Democrats voted for someone else in a contest where voters already tend to skew further to the activist left than they do in general elections.

The Republicans have the discreet advantage of unity. Unlike the Democrats, they have one uncontested candidate, Curtis Sliwa, a radio talk show host who in the 1970s famously founded the Guardian Angels, a civic organization to fight crime. Sliwa was the GOP candidate in 2021, when he lost to Adams by nearly 40 points. Adams, however, was then running unchallenged on the left, on what many believed to be a promising professional record as a former transit cop and New York City police captain, and as a black man on the heels of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests.

Sliwa was an anti-Trump Republican who had just disaffiliated from New York’s small centrist Reform party. In the years since, the electorate largely soured on Adams and Sliwa reentered the Republican fold with strong and dramatically more relevant anti-crime credentials. Meanwhile, Trump doubled his voting base in New York City from 15 percent in 2020 to 30 percent in 2024, with his greatest advances among minorities and in the outer boroughs, where Sliwa was strongest in the 2021 mayoral race.

Sliwa has some foibles and eccentricities, but they pale in comparison to the massive deficiencies present in the Democratic field. In any case, it is inconceivable that Trump’s 2024 voters would now drift back to uninspiring Democratic candidates.

If Sliwa can match Trump’s numbers from 2024 and win over even a small percentage of anti-crime Democrats, it is entirely conceivable that he could win the mayor’s office by a plurality that beats out a non-Republican bloc divided among Mamdani, Adams, and Cuomo. It would be the first mayoral victory by plurality since John Lindsay prevailed in a three-way race in 1969, but a low bar above the three Democrats is all Sliwa would have to 

Sliwa was an anti-Trump Republican who had just disaffiliated from New York’s small centrist Reform party. In the years since, the electorate largely soured on Adams and Sliwa reentered the Republican fold with strong and dramatically more relevant anti-crime credentials. Meanwhile, Trump doubled his voting base in New York City from 15 percent in 2020 to 30 percent in 2024, with his greatest advances among minorities and in the outer boroughs, where Sliwa was strongest in the 2021 mayoral race.

Sliwa has some foibles and eccentricities, but they pale in comparison to the massive deficiencies present in the Democratic field. In any case, it is inconceivable that Trump’s 2024 voters would now drift back to uninspiring Democratic candidates.

If Sliwa can match Trump’s numbers from 2024 and win over even a small percentage of anti-crime Democrats, it is entirely conceivable that he could win the mayor’s office by a plurality that beats out a non-Republican bloc divided among Mamdani, Adams, and Cuomo. It would be the first mayoral victory by plurality since John Lindsay prevailed in a three-way race in 1969, but a low bar above the three Democrats is all Sliwa would have to reach.

Some Republicans already see it. Even before the primary, former New York Governor George Pataki, the last Republican to hold statewide office, spoke strongly in favor of Sliwa and is the headliner of a New York state GOP fundraiser for the mayoral candidate scheduled for Thursday, just two days after the Democratic decision. Hours after the primary, New York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler posted in Sliwa’s favor.

Nothing is guaranteed, of course. Some observers have advocated for Republican voters to back Cuomo or the seemingly reformed Adams as a firewall to stop Mamdani. New York City’s often abashed and self-effacing GOP will have to get behind Sliwa full-steam, and apathetic city Republican voters will have to turn out in greater numbers than usual. But the path to victory is there, if they have the guts to take it.

In addition to fighting Israel, Iranian authorities are also waging war against suspected spies and infiltrators, asking citizens to report anyone they consider suspicious. 

This includes alerting authorities if they see people wearing sunglasses at night, wearing hats, reporting stolen license plates, seeing pick-up trucks with covered beds, or observing vans being driven about during odd hours, which the regime says could be signs of undercover enemies to the nation, reported The New York Times. 

In the weeks since Israel launched its attacks on Iran earlier this month, Iran has arrested hundreds of people, who are quickly tried and often executed. The regime has also pushed forward a law that broadens the use of the death penalty for anyone who is convicted of espionage. 

The crackdowns are leading some in Iran to believe the government’s efforts will lead to attacks on political opponents as well. 

Still, Iranian officials may well have a point, considering Israel’s history of infiltrating Iran to gather intelligence while carrying out assassinations and other sabotage. 

Even in the recent conflict, Israel has boasted of its ability to launch attacks from within Iran, and Iranian officials have reported clues that they say point to the Mossad being helped by operatives within the nation. 

“It’s clear the Mossad has a very wide network inside Iran — and probably 90 percent of them are locals,” Iran analyst Mohammad Ali Shabani, who edits the independent regional news site Amwaj.media, commented. “The big question is: Who are they? Fingers are being pointed all over the place.”

The Israeli intelligence abilities were on display within hours after the beginning of the June 13 strike, when several top generals and nuclear scientists were killed in their homes. 

But Iranian officials are not admitting the intelligence failures, and rights groups say that many of the people who were arrested over the past two weeks were not given access to lawyers or had been presented with warrants. 

According to Amnesty International, the regime has engaged in “grossly unfair trials” and executions, because of “a misguided attempt to project strength.”

Mohammed Reza, a 40-year-old resident of the city of Tabriz, commented that it is only a matter of time before political opponents come under attack. 

“Right now, they want to make sure no one mocks the regime or has hope for regime change,” he said in a text. “The regime’s main fear is that people will perceive it as weak. Because if people know it lacks power, they will revolt.” 

Sandy Fitzgerald ✉

Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.