it's not "striping him of citizenship".
#2 | Posted by eberly

"Republican congressman Randy Fine has called for an investigation into the citizenship status of NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani"

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
George Orwell, 1984

He didn't even say he wants to strip him of his citizenship.......but called for an investigation.
#10 | Posted by eberly

You're lying, Eberly.

I'll demonstrate, by asking a question you can't answer.

What primary purpose could the investigation serve, other than stripping Mamdani's citizenship?

"a level of socialism (e.g., rent freezes, city-run groceries, and free public transit, etc.) that's never really been implemented at this scale in the U.S."

Its all been done.

1. NYC and other cities have had rent controlled apartments for many years.
2. Seattle has free city buses for five or ten years -- it made them rolling homeless shelters and eventually they stopped.
3. Everyone in the military gets a government run grocery store called the PX.

Best comment on this was Mamdani pointing out how one of NYC's ideologically opposed oligarchs has spent over $1M advertising against Mamdani's tax on the rich.

But the amount Mamdani would raise his taxes is less than $1M.

Yet regular citizens don't have access to this. Now you get the point?
#34 | Posted by rstybeach11

Military housewives seem pretty regular to me. Actually so do enlistees. So I'm not sure what you're getting at.

The fear isn't that he'll fail; it's that he might actually succeed and prove those ideas popular.

vs

The fear isn't that he'll fail; it's that he might actually succeed and prove those ideas successful.

"Extending that model to civilians"

Military wives are civilians, I thought I was kinda driving that point home earlier.

"We've subsidized food before, but we've never actually run the grocery stores ourselves."

Well, except all those PX's...

The Museums on the National Mall have gift shops...

"Extending that model to civilians would be a first in U.S. history."

I suspect you are running a little lean on facts and history, friend.

"You refer to them as PXs, not grocery stores."

I called them PXs because that's what they're called.
Ever been in one? It's closer to a Costco or a Super Wal-Mart. A lot more than just groceries.

Military wives can be some of the worst Karens imaginable. Actually I can imagine them storming the NYC stores just to complain that having other government run stores diminishes the value of their stores, like they complained gay marriage cheapens the value of their marriage. No honey you sleeping around while your husband is in Afghanistan is what diminished your marriage.

I've never been to one because I am a Regular (*unaffiliated to military) citizen.
You catching on now?
#47 | Posted by rstybeach11

I don't believe I am.
What am I supposed to be catching on to with that comment?

"Mamdani's proposal would be the first time a U.S. city operates that kind of store for everyone."

Oh you mean this?

I'll include one sentence before and after since those sentences seem very applicable here.

You drinking IPAs tonight by chance?
#50 | Posted by rstybeach11

Good idea! I went for Dogfish Head. Not sure how available that is on the Left Coast.

"What makes Mamdani's proposal different is scale and intent."

He's talking five stores. It's not much in terms of scale. Intent is pretty similar too, he wants lower income people in NYC to have access to quality nutritious food, and not so much the stuff you get at Dollar General.

Personally I would take a much more radical approach. I would be running soup kitchens like they do at Rainbow Gathering. Which scales well; every camp has one. It was Garick's idea, and he got the idea when his Uncle Sam sent him to Vietnam. So I can promise you it's a very workable, very implementable idea. But hey, handouts to people needing food, who does this Snoofy guy think he is, Jesus?

"As long as it gets funded there is no failure."

So is the United States a failure, with that $93.1T of unfunded liability we're carrying?

"What that means is he's going to have to take money from people who would never take advantage of these perks"

You, uh, apparently don't think it's the case that those people already took advantage of other perks.
You have an ideological objection to poor people getting perks, but not rich people getting perks.
For you, this conversation starts in a place where there are currently no perks, is how you're framing it.
You started there because you're a fundamentally dishonest person.

"What's his plan when he loses the top 5% of tax payers?"

They'll quit their NYC jobs over a 1-2% tax hike?
I suppose some would. But I expect those jobs will get restaffed, since people aren't making that kind of money unless their company thinks they're doing something worth even more money.

"I started there because Mamdani want's to provide benefits that currently aren't available. In turn, it would mean he has to come up with the money to begin providing said benefits."

Nah. Money grows on trees.

Either that, or everybody already knows the deep, insightful point you think you're making here -- that things have to get paid for -- so they're just ignoring it, because you're not adding anything to the discussion.

"This is what Mamdani wants to do?"

That's what he's selling, but it will never make it past Kathy Hochul's desk.

"I don't like his ideas because I haven't seen it work."

Yep. This is the genuine terror Mamdani inspires in right-wingers:
"What if his ideas work?"
That's why you're dead-set against letting him try.

If you were an honest person, you'd acknowledge there's more than a glimmer of truth in that.

"And NYC is going down the tubes like some of these other once beautiful cities did."

Is it now.
Is it going down the tubes any more than the rest of America under Trump?

"What taxes are you referring to?"

Can this plan get through the NY State Legislature?
seems like a tough sell.
#79 | Posted by eberly

It's probably impossible to sell to the State Legislature.
But, if New Yorkers seem to really want it, I expect Hochul will find some room for compromise.

It's in the link. NYC already has 1M rent controlled housing units. To rent control more of them is not within the Mayor's power, unless he goes Trump and starts doing illegal things and the House doesn't stop him.

"You" means Deplorables, including you. Thanks for letting me clear that up.

#92 The only accomplishment he's ever spoken of is making some good deals.

So yeah, playing with house money.

"there's gotta be some reason billionaires are spending millions of dollars trying to defeat Mamdani."

It's 100% because they are afraid that if NYC decides to tax the rich people an extra 1-2% (of their Income; notably not on Capital Gains), the White House can't be far behind.

That's it. That's all there is to it. It wouldn't be quite so extreme if NYC weren't the financial capital of the world, but then we wouldn't be having this discussion either.

Now, some will argue the opposition is ideological. The types of social welfare programs Mamdani advocates are hugely popular with American voters nationally.

But, again, the opposition is because those hugely popular programs come at the cost of taxing the rich, and taxing the rich is just not how we do things in this country, at least not since 1975. We grow the rich, we don't tax the rich. We're breeding an oligarch class.

"But if the ideas aren't politically realistic then what's the point?"

Was overturning Roe politically realistic, you fat smelly douchebag?