This was a fun one: Ben Steverman & I took a close look at the class of wealthy New Yorkers threatening to leave if Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor and found that they are actually stuck here www.bloomberg.com/news/feature…
— Emily Flitter (@emilyflitter.bsky.social) October 30, 2025 at 8:24 AM
Bloomberg News, “New York’s Golden Handcuffs: Why the City Has a Special Hold on the Rich”:
… Lately there’s been a lot of worry, even a bit of panic, that the wealthy are about to ditch New York. Many rich people, Bahnsen included, are alarmed at the prospect of a self-described democratic socialist running this city of uber-capitalists. “You can do a lot of damage in four years,” he says of Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assemblyman who polls suggest will be elected mayor on Nov. 4.
But Bahnsen, at least, isn’t going anywhere. On a recent weekend that included a New York Jets-Dallas Cowboys football game and a long walk along the Hudson River, he and his wife spent Saturday apartment hunting in their favorite neighborhood, Gramercy Park.
West Virginia has coal. Texas has oil. New York has rich people. Almost 35,000 year-round city residents earned at least $1 million in 2023, the latest tax data show. Of the world’s 500 wealthiest people, 23 call New York City home, with a combined net worth of nearly $450 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and many more come through town as often as time and their tax situations allow.
Depleting this resource could devastate the city. Each year, NYC’s top 1%—those with incomes of at least $900,000—contribute about two-fifths of the city’s $18 billion in annual income tax revenue. Their lavish homes and sleek offices cover a large share of the city’s roughly $34 billion in annual property levies as well. Even a few billionaires or marquee employers packing up their bags could put a noticeable dent in the municipal budget.
But look at enough data and talk to enough successful residents, and one thing becomes clear: Even as New York can’t live without its rich people, many of its rich people can’t live without New York…
Clearly, well-heeled New Yorkers are freaked out. Tax advisers and real estate agents say they’re getting more inquiries from well-off New Yorkers weighing an escape to the suburbs. In Westchester County, north of the city, David Turner of Compass says realtors have been calling for months trying to set up connections for their city clients, though he hasn’t yet seen a move attributable to Mamdani’s candidacy. “People are concerned about what’s going to happen, particularly from a tax perspective,” says Timothy Noonan, a law partner at Hodgson Russ specializing in residency issues.
New York offers its 8.5 million residents no shortage of reasons to leave, from minor inconveniences—piles of trash, brazen rats—to bigger problems like decrepit infrastructure, which results in the longest commutes in the US, and a housing shortage, which means even the affluent can wind up living in apartments smaller than a typical American garage. Doing business in New York is no easier than living here. Hiring staff is expensive, and bureaucracy is everywhere. A September report by the Public Policy Institute of New York State, a think tank, cited “anti-competitive policies and the incredibly high hassle-factor of doing business in the state.”…
For all the angst about New York City these days, it’s remarkable how well things are going. Broadway houses are fuller than ever. The subways are getting busier and safer. The population is rising again, and the city’s economy seems to have held up well this year as Wall Street pay soars and tax revenue comes in strong.
New York remains a fantastic place to get rich and stay that way. From 2015 to 2023, the city minted million-dollar earners at a rate of three per day, the latest tax data show, adding a total of 9,000 over the period. And the city’s top billionaires saw their combined net worth soar 90% in the last nine years. Nicole Reboe, the CEO of the Rich Talent Group, an executive recruiting firm in New York, sees the city as a proving ground for executives. “I don’t want to start singing Frank Sinatra, but it still has the cachet,” Reboe says. “People still want to have this as market experience for their careers.”
New Yorkers make huge sums in industries including media, advertising, public relations, technology, the arts and fashion. But the engine driving New York’s wealth-generating machine is Wall Street. The financial industry paid out $132 billion to more than 320,000 Manhattan-based employees last year, with earnings rising 32% since the start of the pandemic, BLS data show. This year should set another record, with total earnings jumping an additional 17% year-over-year in the first quarter, when bonuses are typically paid out…
Despite AI and remote work, the world’s most powerful investors are betting they’ll still need these expensive humans to commute into offices for years to come. This fall, Barclays Plc announced plans to spend at least $1 billion overhauling its Times Square office tower (which once housed Lehman Brothers, RIP), and JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week at the bank’s new 10,000-employee Park Avenue headquarters. Eventually Griffin—yes, he of Miami—plans to move Citadel’s New York offices a few blocks away, to an even taller, pricier tower that just won City Council approval.
These investments add to the more than $1.5 trillion now tied up in New York City real estate, vast portfolios that give many billionaires, including President Donald Trump, literal stakes in the city’s success. “I always like to joke that the real estate sector is the permanent government in New York City,” says Columbia Business School professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh. “There’s a lot of incentives to work with the mayor and with the government for the real estate industry to make things work and have the economy thrive.”…
For workers in finance and a range of other industries, no technology has so far replaced New York’s longstanding specialty, the face-to-face chat. In-person meetings remain essential for sniffing out who you can trust, what deals might be brewing and which rumors to believe. And from Wall Street to the United Nations, nowhere pulls together more gossip and more elite decision-makers. If you’re trying to make a deal or sell a product, “there is no city better than New York,” says Sam Dorison, CEO and co-founder of ReflexAI, which uses AI to train and monitor human call-center operators for a wide range of industries. “Even the folks who don’t live here come through the city.” The constant traffic of rich people through New York is reflected in per-night hotel prices that are 80% higher than the national average, according to CoStar data, with year-to-date occupancy rates far higher than any other major US city…
Making money is hard enough. Protecting, managing and properly enjoying it can be a task of limitless complexity. New York puts within blocks thousands of the world’s best lawyers, accountants, financial advisers, brokers, fixers, publicists, art advisers, designers and stylists. A specialist in any possible niche is only a taxi ride away. It’s a city optimized for the lifestyles of the 1%. “I like to be spontaneous. I can do whatever I want at any given time in New York, and it’s hard to do that elsewhere,” says Nur Kahn, a former Lehman Brothers trader who’s opened a series of restaurants and nightclubs on the Lower East Side since the 1990s, including his latest, Maison Nur, in June.
The cultural and social allure of the city is legendary. Although Dorison’s AI startup is fully remote and he could be anywhere, he chooses to live in an Astor Place apartment minutes from a seemingly infinite array of performances, exhibits and other happenings. “No New Yorker feels like they have enough time to experience New York,” he says. “Every week you hear something that your friend did last weekend that you wish you had done.”…
The real estate appraiser Jonathan Miller remembers a time when parts of Wall Street really did try to walk away—not even very far away. In the 1990s, trading firms and other financial businesses relocated to southern Connecticut. Although some put down roots, especially hedge funds such as Bridgewater, Miller says “that experiment was a failure, and it was wildly overhyped.” UBS’s once-famed Stamford facility, with the largest trading floor in the area, is now a World Wrestling Entertainment office.
The piers where ocean liners once left for Europe are now parks. The former factories of SoHo are now homes for the city’s highest earners and an outdoor shopping mall for hordes of tourists. The indomitable metropolis bounced back richer than ever after Sept. 11, the 2008 financial crisis and Covid, each a direct strike on New York’s strongest advantages. “What can you throw at us that we haven’t seen already?” Kahn asks…
Mike Bloomberg grew up in Malden, a resolutely working-class town satellite to Boston. He wanted larger goals. He originally studied electrical engineering, where he realized that the big money lay in the new-fangled world of business computing — and, while there were fortunes to be made inventing computer programs, there were *bigger* fortunes awaiting those who could invent finance programs. Big Finance meant New York City, so… Years of hard work, a certain amount of good luck, and Mike Bloomberg is very much a New Yorker.*
New York, like all great ‘international’ cities, is aware there are other places to live; the question is why anyone would want to do so.
*(This is, of course, the opposite of Donald Trump’s trajectory. Outer-borough native Trump was never able to either make his own fortune or be accepted by the New York oligarchy, and will go to his grave resenting it.)
Rich New Yorkers keep threatening to leave over taxes, but the data tells a different story: they actually move away less than everyone else. After 2021's tax hikes on millionaires, revenue went up. The exodus threat? Pure billionaire theater.
The latest for #UNFTR from @rashedmian.bsky.social.— Max from UNFTR (@unftr.com) October 28, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Kristine
I’ve just been an occasional Manhattan visitor, and I’ve seen enough to know there’s no place like it. Dropping in every so often from Low Taxes, Wherever just wouldn’t be the same.
eclare
It’s a scare tactic. IIRC Boston enacted a millionaire’s tax, in the shadow of the threat that they’ll all move. The revenue collected was about double the projection. Got it:
finance.yahoo.com/news/massachusetts-collected-2-billion-more-153147561.html
Baud
Not the same.
Anonymous At Work
How many will become Texas or Florida residents like the Bush family (1 night a year in a hotel room)?
Chacal Charles Calthrop
Complete scare tactic. Whatever you could or would want to spend your money on (apart from spending time in nature) is available in NYC.
Also, if you’re so poor that a bit of extra taxation means you can’t afford the place, that means you really weren’t as rich as you said you were, amirite? So only the pretenders are going to have to move away. Which, of course, will create its own social pressure to stay.
Sure Lurkalot
“A number of my friends who belong in these very high upper brackets have suggested to me, more in sorrow than in anger, that if I am reelected they will have to move to some other Nation because of high taxes here. I shall miss them very much…” Franklin D. Roosevelt, October 1936.
Same shit, different day.
trollhattan
Elon left California in a huff and we’re still smiling. “Dude, can’t you leave a second time to be sure?”
His complaint: too anti business? Nope, the “last straw” was trans rights.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Let em move if such a tax becomes onerous*
*Onerous = a smidgen less-rich than before
We’ve seen 40+ years of the federal tax code being re-written to support the accumulation of wealth by so many of these clowns…with no suggestion short of very violent revolution that that will ever change.
So if a state wants to even mildly work against that, good. We are where we are in this country in part because of the massive wealth inequality that Reagan helped start.
jowriter
@Sure Lurkalot: FDR had that one right for sure. I do not weep for these folks. Buh bye and don’t let the door hit ya, as they say.
NYC is a very difficult place to govern, as most mayors have discovered. But I hope Mamdani can do some good.
Glory b
What i dont understand is why people spend so much time on this race when the gubernatorial race next door in NJ is sooooo much more important.
And the one in VA too, for that matter.
Old School
@Glory b: Because NYC is where the media is located.
Old Man Shadow
Hmm. I think any rich person complaining about paying slightly higher taxes after decades of record lows needs to all of their shit confiscated and have to live off of the safety net for a while.
burritoboy
We get the same exact nonsense in California. Do the rich move away from California? Small numbers of the rich do buy additional residences in nearby states (Nevada, Wyoming, Idaho, etc.) and do sometimes pretend to primarily live in them for tax purposes. It makes very little difference at the scale of California – there’s a reason why they were living in California originally, and that reason usually INCREASES as they get wealthier. There is very limited (comparatively) wealth-making opportunities in Wyoming or Idaho or Nevada compared to what California offers. So, sure, some eventually do retire to these states, but it’s not that meaningful to California’s macro-economy. (The ones that retire elsewhere are more than replaced by new ones.)
schrodingers_cat
BTW Mamdani comes from money he is not exactly working class.
Ishiyama
@schrodingers_cat: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
Baud
@Ishiyama:
That would be me.
Glory b
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: This isn’t the state, its the city.
I have no idea of how well Mamdani will do with city council, but, as I believe, most of what he wants to do must come from them.
Baud
Via Reddit, you will never make this cool am entrance.
iKropoclast
@Ishiyama: You can only be a good socialist if you were born in a gutter among sewer rats, according to strident capitalists.
schrodingers_cat
@Ishiyama: I have no idea what that means. Do you think I am as wealthy as Mamdani is? I wish.
My mother taught math, she was not a film maker.
Glory b
@Old School: You’re probably right.
It’s important because members of the media have so many rich “friends.”
schrodingers_cat
Contrary to what my blog stalker states I am a Keynesian, not a strident capitalist, whatever that means.
iKropoclast
@schrodingers_cat: Strident means loud and harsh/grating per dictionary.com. And this isn’t about you. Your lazy point of view is very common
Keynesianism is an approach to capitalist policy making, no?
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m not concerned about his wealth. A lot of people are going to knee cap Pritzger for the same reason.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I am concerned about his lack of experience and the claims and the promises he has made. And that the media is going to make him the face of all Indian Americans if he wins.
These tankie princelings do not know what it is to be a working person but will presume to speak for them.
Tony Jay
Over here newnewlabourinc and it’s online acolytes are viciously opposed to any prospect of taxing wealth, deploying many of the same BS arguments oligarch fluffers have been relying on since Sauron went to Númenor and invented the tax lobbyist.
Fuck ‘em. Succinctly.
oldgold
Trump’s Great Gatsby themed Halloween party was both appalling and appropriate.
This famous line from the novel says it well.
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy— (Trump and Associates) they smashed up things and . . . then retreated back into their money . . . and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: He isn’t pretending to be working class.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: No but he presumes to speak for them.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: *Pritzker
Sure Lurkalot
@schrodingers_cat:
Granted, our mega millionaires and billionaires are mostly shitty sociopaths but you do not have to be of modest means to support and advance the needs of working people.
iKropoclast
@schrodingers_cat: Funny way of spelling “has spent time considering policies that would help them.”
SpaceUnit
Christ, we have these assholes even in Colorado. Now that the state has become reliably blue it’s pretty common to see posts on Nextdoor from people claiming they’re going to have to move away from this socialist hellhole. I always offer to help them pack.
Go ahead. Move to Kentucky.
mrmoshpotato
@oldgold:
That nicely describes the GOP for the past 40+ years.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: “Presumes”? Interesting word choice.
mrmoshpotato
@SpaceUnit: LOL!
trollhattan
@oldgold:
I wonder how many came dressed as Daisy Epstein?
Tony Jay
The ‘champagne socialist’ jibe is thrown around a lot over here too. Apparently unless you were born in a hovel to an unbroken line of hovel-dwellers and have only ever left said hovel to walk, barefoot, up muddy mountain trails to work 20 hour days in unlit mines for clipped scraps of stained tin, you’re somehow ‘unauthentic’ and an arrogant posho guilty of condescending to the common man.
Like a lot of things said about opponents of established wealth, it’s a load of blithering hogwash. Prince or pauper, it’s what you say and do that counts. Everything else is cocktail party chit-chat.
TONYG
“The rich people are going to run away!!!” has always been bullshit. Rich people like to hang out with other rich people so that they can show off their wealth to each other. What’s the point of having billions of dollars if you can’t show off? The technology to easily communicate and easily trade stocks and bonds remotely has been a mature technology since the late nineties. Yet rich people still work in the NYC Wall Street area and still live in places like the Upper East Side. They could live and work anywhere, yet they cluster together. Why? To show off to each other.
iKropoclast
@Tony Jay: Way more vivid and elaborate than mine. I suppose I wouldn’t have expected otherwise.
Melancholy Jaques
CBS has apparently gone into full shameless promotion for that asshole.
jonas
@oldgold: Both Trump and Gatsby were immature narcissists with delusions of grandeur who got their wealth through fraud, so this all tracks pretty well.
The fact that these morons actually called the party a “Gatsby-themed” party shows that they 1. never read the book and 2. if they did, *totally* didn’t get it. Kind of how like Republicans are always playing Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” without having a clue what the song’s really about.
HeleninEire
Yeah so I tried to read this bullshit, I’ll go back and try again….but Rich New York peeps aren’t leaving. Ask all the Fox News people who live here.
And for sure, rich Americans are definitely not leaving the country. Wanna know why? Because of you are an American and live in another country, you still owe American taxes as soon as you make more than $120k.
Ask me how I know. I made $50,000 in Ireland. I didn’t owe taxes but as still an American citizen I still had to file a tax return.
MazeDancer
There are only two things wrong with NYC. (Lived there 18 years).
It’s noisy. Really noisy. And expensive. Really, really expensive.
If you’re rich, there is no bette place to live. What are they going to do? Learn French and move to Paris? .
Museums! Theatre! Restaurants! Great dinner parties with special people. Smart, interesting folk everywhere. Knowing that you can get the best of the best no matter what you need.
If you’re rich, spend your money on having a wonderful life and a fabulous place to live. You go to the Hamptons or Maine or Upstate all Summer anyway
They ain’t moving. And if they do, no loss.
Castor Canadensis
@Tony Jay: Those ‘champagne socialist’ attacks are leftovers from the Russian Revolution, where you had to prove you were a (poor) worker or peasant.
Moderately successful peasants were called “Kulacs”, which means “fists”. Millions were executed, imprisoned, or deported under Stalin.
Tony Jay
@iKropoclast:
I just write about what I know. Those mines were murder on my back, but I sustained myself on handfuls of wall moss and the fumes from my sizzling integrity.
But I once wore a set of clogs I found buried with a dead Dutchman, so I guess I’m just another unauthentic hypocrite now.
Martin
@Old School: This.
Columbia was the center of the student Gaza protests not because they were the most determined there, but because Columbia is closest to the media offices. Why fuck off to Columbus Ohio for a story when you can take the number 1 train and be there in 10 minutes
But I also dispute that the NYC race doesn’t matter. NYC has been incrementally a threat to the conservative narrative as the city gets safer and nicer to live in. Mamdani is quite determined to continue to threaten the conservative narrative.
Jeffg166
Someone once said, New Yorkers were very provincial. It’s true. Where else could they live?
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: Love you, Tony Jay, so glad you are back with us.
iKropoclast
😂😂😂 Perfect.
Seems a threat to how you’re supplementing your moss diet…
Tony Jay
@Castor Canadensis:
Oh, I’d put it further back than that. The French Revolution surely saw more than one too vocal Revolutionäre brought low for not wearing a sufficiently rough weave of stocking to qualify as a tribune of the common folk.
And in this case, these attacks are usually deployed by defenders of wealth to dirty up anyone challenging their privilege in the eyes of the proles. It’s basically trying to brand someone as a hypocrite when you can’t actually dismiss their arguments.
Martin
@MazeDancer: And the noise is mainly because we turned the city over to cars. Otherwise it would sound like Paris.
And the cost is bad, but there are an awful lot of expenses that NYC residents get to avoid, but also ones that impact how you live. A dog, for instance, is shockingly expensive for most city dwellers to have but if you’re fine not having a dog, there’s no impact. That makes it hard to compare.
eclare
@Sure Lurkalot:
Great quote! Forwarded on.
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
So was FDR.
sab
@burritoboy: California has a whole industry of taxing people who claim to mostly live elsewhere. I’ve been through some of those audits. Show us your driver’s license. Where do you vote. Where is your dentist, your doctor, your bank. Who maintains your car.
mrmoshpotato
@Melancholy Jaques:
Which asshole? – there’s an entire political party of them.
eclare
@Tony Jay:
Brilliant.
JoyceH
The GOP doesn’t seem to get that just chanting “socialist, socialist, socialist “ is not a winning message. For eight years they brayed that Obama was a socialist, and instead of bringing down Obama’s approval, what happened was that approval of socialism went up. It might help if they joined us in this century. When they say “socialist” they’re thinking Cuba and USSR, but a lot of their listeners hear “socialist” and think Denmark.
WaterGirl
@Sure Lurkalot: “I shall miss them very much.”
Perfect shiv!
mrmoshpotato
@MazeDancer:
Has their discovery that garbage cans exist eliminated the rat problem? 😁
iKropoclast
A tactic with an impeccable reputation of success…
Baud
@Martin:
Except for your soul.
Baud
@JoyceH:
Disagree. It has been. Whether Trumpism creates the conditions for things to change is an open question.
Baud
@Martin:
Thanks, Mayor Adams!
Almost all cities have become safer and nicer. Not an NYC phenomenon, except for the media attention.
trollhattan
@Castor Canadensis:
Revisited more or less with the Cultural Revolution, itself mimicked by Pol Pot’s Cambodia.
Ain’t we got fun?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I liked it too.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
What?! Have you heard what a hellhole Chicago is?!
iKropoclast
@Baud: I’m not so sure that “socialist, socialist, socialist” was the winning message. Romney lost with that. It wasn’t prominent in Trump’s messaging, but he did a lot of targeted messaging.
Trump’s winning message from what I could see was “don’t believe what we say we’re going to do (it’s just rhetoric/a joke) and don’t listen to what they say they are going to do (in fact, don’t acknowledge they’ve proposed anything).
MazeDancer
@Jeffg166:
Me. I have used that exact word. Years ago. On this blog. And elsewhere.
Had to move away from NYC to see it.
While being screaming liberals, open to every kind of person, a whole lotta New Yorkers are very set in their ways.
Live in the same neighborhood, often the same apartment, for decades. Kids go to the right schools. They work really hard and expect success.
Support their charities. Vote. Stand-up citizens.
Even creative people, who might take risks in their work, after achieving a certain level, don’t go wild and crazy in the streets.
HeleninEire
@mrmoshpotato: We are trying our best. Been here 50 somthing years.
I’ve seen maybe 5 actual rats in the street. Except for the rats on the subway tracks. Every once in a while I see a subway rat. But here’s why that’s funny. If I see a rat in the subway. I watch. Because guess what? Those rats know when the subway is coming. They run away way before the subway comes.
kalakal
Every general election in the UK the same list of celebs and business types* is trotted out by the media to declare that “If Labour win they’ll leave the country and we’ll all be very sorry”. Once the chorus of “Who they?” and “Don’t bother to wait, fuck off right now” dies away life goes on.
The lying scrotes never actually leave.
*usually B list has beens and the sort of busness operators whose annual turnover is equivalent to nearly 20% of the median salary of Cement, Oklahoma
Wapiti
@Anonymous At Work: I used to have to do non-resident California taxes because the spouse earned money from the state. Their determination of resident vs. non-resident was something like: how many nights did you sleep in California? 183? You’re a resident. 182 or
lessfewer? Please keep records, we may ask for them.Baud
@iKropoclast:
They don’t always win the presidential election with it. But I think it’s a message gets them votes for other federal offices and state offices.
They don’t always refer to “socialism” by name in their campaign attacks
ETA
mrmoshpotato
@HeleninEire:
LOL! Probably also true for the subway here.
MazeDancer
@Martin: Lots of cats.
Dogs have to be walked. And cut in to working late.
Though, Central Park early in the morning, when dogs can be off leash, is lots of fun, and a happy experience.
iKropoclast
And even when they do, they’re not reeeealllly talking about socialism. They’re talking about government spending and often, for some reason, anti-racism
Yeah, this is what I was talking about with the hyper-targeted messaging. My favorite example of this will always be Trump’s promises to protect gay and Muslim people from each other. Both visible right next to the other on his campaign page, all it takes not to notice is complete disinterest in the needs of groups other than your own.
Baud
@iKropoclast:
Sure. To be honest, a lot of self-proclaimed “socialists” also mean that rather than actual socialism.
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
I keep telling you, lady, I’m always here. Peering over everyone’s shoulders and keeping abreast of the latest trends.
Just because I’m not always contradicting the foot-stamping factionalists and the one-note solipsists directly, it doesn’t mean I’m not shaking my damned head very loudly. If this were a podcast you’d hear my ear-lobes flap.
Geminid
@Old School: The concentration of media in New York City is an obvious explaination on the surface, but this race is being discussed in terms of its national political implications in a way the New Jersey and Virginia races are not.
These three jurisdictions are similar in population, with Virginia having a couple hundred thousand more people than New York’s 8.5 million, and New Jersey having one million more.
But demographically, New Jersey’s and Virginia’s electorates are more similar to those in the battleground states of Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina than New York City’s. In that sense, I think the elections in Virginia and New Jersey are much more significant than New York’s mayoral race.
But the only way these elections will get similar attention is if Mikie Sherrill loses in New Jersey on Tuesday. That will be a big story, but if Sherrill wins, not so much.
kalakal
@Tony Jay: I never understood why ‘Champagne Socialism” was seen as a bad thing. Sounds a lot more appealing than ‘Trickle down’
Baud
@kalakal:
I thought that originated as a lefty attack on rich people who claimed to care.
ETA: Maybe I’m thinking of limousine liberal.
Kayla Rudbek
@HeleninEire:
@mrmoshpotato: the DC metro system has a rat exterminator (either on staff or contractor, I forget which) and apparently he has to make rounds at every single station because by the time he’s reached the end of his rounds, the first station has rats again.
I have seen rats in person at the bus depot for one of the stations I would frequently use, but never inside the station itself. And it was after dark when I saw the rats anyway (heading in and out of the trash bins which are open on top by design).
jonas
@mrmoshpotato: And don’t get me started on Portland. According to MAGA, it’s basically a post-apocalyptic wasteland. People driving around in Mad Max-style war vehicles, C.H.U.Ds everywhere feasting on the corpses of the dead, and the only food to scavange are double soy macchiatos served by undead barristas from hell. Oh, and they *still* want tips.
Tony Jay
@iKropoclast:
These things work… until they don’t. Then the gaslighters risk an engaged electorate getting pissed off with being gaslit and things get hot, fast.
zhena gogolia
@mrmoshpotato: I was also wondering.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud: St. Louis has become safer, but not nicer. <sigh> Maybe that will change with the new mayor.
Captain C
@jonas:
Zombies still gotta pay rent in Portland.
mrmoshpotato
@jonas:
Oh 80’s horror movies… Excellent.
trollhattan
@jonas: Still scratching my head over Trump declaring stores in Portland get burned down so often they just rebuild them using plywood.
So specific and yet utterly random.
Plus, have you even seen the price of plywood?
Baud
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
It’s harder in a red state.
trollhattan
@Kayla Rudbek: Sounds like painting the Golden Gate Bridge.
Maybe they could paint the rats?
kalakal
@Baud: I remember it as being a right wing attack on upper and middle class leftys who expressed left wing views. The implication being that they were just ‘slumming’, out of touch idealists or academics in their ivory towers who were just posturing while insulated by their wealth and position from the grim economic realities of life unlike the horny handed sons of toil that make up the serried ranks of factory owners, stockbrokers and merchant bankers, slaving away to ensure the country avoids the horrors of equitable distribution of wealth.
kalakal
@trollhattan:
Thanks, I must remember that one, in Britland it’s the Forth Bridge ( my favourite bridge)
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan:
So true. Just leaves you wondering “WTF?”
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
There’s an audience for that sort of content. It’s fan fic, essentially.
Tony Jay
@kalakal:
@Baud:
I think you’re both right. Same smear, different slang.
I, for example, am a very democratic socialist. I want the best for everyone. And if that means sharing the produce of our hard-working comrades in the Champagne region of France fairly and equitably, let’s get bubbly!
Anyway
Remember the right wing attacks against Gore – that he couldn’t be a true Dem or care for working people bcos his father was a senator.
Jackie
This sounds like an endorsement of Mamdani to me.
eclare
@mrmoshpotato:
He is so specific and weirdly convincing in his lies. FFOTUS once claimed that he was invited to go on John Oliver’s show (John Oliver’s show does not have guests). But he was so insistent about it, John said he checked with everyone who works on the show to make sure no invitation had been given.
Geminid
@Kayla Rudbek: Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, opened up its new subway system last January. It consists of six lines totalling 109 miles, above and below ground, and connects 85 stations. The system is driverless, and probably ratless as well.
In 1972, Riyadh’s population was 500.000 people. Now, it’s a little over 7 million.
mrmoshpotato
@eclare:
Yeah. I remember John’s bewilderment in that episode.
frosty
@Castor Canadensis: This is an eye-opening take on the attacks on champagne socialists. Rings true.
Gretchen
I love the idea that these plutocrats are going to give up their 5 star restaurants, doorman buildings and Broadway to move to a low-tax place like Alabama and enjoy dinner at Cracker Barrel before an evening of community theatre.
Mamdani gets flack about impractical ideas but some of them build on things New York already has. The cost of daycare is a huge concern for working families everywhere, but New York City public schools already have free 3-K – preschool for ages 3 and up. It wouldn’t be a huge stretch to extend that down to 2 year olds. My twin grandchildren are in 3K, and they have really stepped up with services for my special-needs grandson in a way that I don’t think we’d see here in Kansas. My granddaughter doesn’t need extra help and is happily in a different classroom in the same building as her brother.
They do charge for extended-day care, but it’s pretty reasonable compared to the $2000 it costs here for a 3 year old.
JoyceH
@trollhattan: I suspect that interested parties are showing Trump random clips of past turmoil and claiming it’s wherever their target city is. (Noem and Lewandowsky if I had to guess the perps.) And by now Trump is so out of it they could show him video of the Rodney King riots and tell him it’s Chicago 2025.
JoyceH
BTW, I’d love to know whose idea it was to have the Gatsby theme for the MAL Halloween Party, because you know darn well it wasn’t Trump.
kalakal
You get a variation of the smear when celebs do fund raising for charity*
“Why don’t you give all your money away first then?” **
I’m not actually aware of any fund raising that asks for the hoi polloi to donate their all, the ask is usually $10 or so.
* There’s definitely celeb grifters and posturers but many do actually raise/ donate huge amounts
**The one that did piss me off was Bono when he was palling around and moralising with senior pols. It wasn’t his goal I objected ,increasing foreign aid programs, it was the spectacle of a notorious tax dodger trying to set himself up for sainthood by advocting the useage of other peoples money
iKropoclast
I just wish the engagement could come, for once, before there are multiple active fires to fight with a massive storage of accelerant threatening to ignite.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: nature is actually quite close and not just the plethora of parks. The Hudson River Valley is around the corner. There are lakes aplenty and mountains too. The ocean is right there. There is always Woodstock.
Gloria DryGarden
@Sure Lurkalot: it’s great that someone with great presentation and willingness to put his wealth to good use, also seems to be a person who listens. And listens to, cares about, the issues and needs of regular folk, the non- millionaires. So, yay.
Mai Naem mobile
@Glory b: because Mamdani scares the shit out of them. If he succeeds, which is hardly guaranteed, there’s going to be a million Zohrans running for office from Seattle to Key West. There’s a reason why tfg and the billionaires are going after him so hard. I frankly didn’t pay attention to Mamdani because I figure the chances of a South Asian Muslim becoming NYC mayor was zero. He’s an incredibly talented politician. I’m disappointed that Bloomberg endorsed Cuomo. It would have been better if he hadn’t endorsed anybody. And Jeffries taking so long to endorse.was dumb as well.
Ishiyama
Heard in Hyde Park: “Comes the Revolution, we will all eat strawberries and cream!” A voice: But, I don’t like strawberries and cream!” “Comrade, comes the Revolution, we will all eat strawberries and cream, and like it!”
Aziz, light!
Elite is back on the menu, boys.
Tony Jay
@iKropoclast:
It’s not an exact science, but you can’t make an omelette without at least risking blowing up the street.
I think I got that from the Mr Men books. Mr Insurgent was always my favourite.
Tony Jay
@Ishiyama:
More revolutions have failed from cholesterol overdose than have died on the bayonets of armed men.
Another Scott
@Mai Naem mobile: The panic about Mamdani seems to me to be entirely driven by the NYC press.
Does nobody remember how Cuomo prevented DeBlasio from doing almost anything (beyond the things that the NYPD wouldn’t let him do, of course)?
Remember Mayor Beame and the 1975 near bankruptcy?
NYC Mayor isn’t King. There are masses of constraints on what he can do. He’ll have to do lots of persuasion and cajoling and compromising to get almost anything done, the the poor scardycat billionaires know that.
If the people of NYC want the things he’s talking about, they’ve got to have his back in the battles ahead.
I think he’s smart enough to know these things, but so much of politics is out of the hands of smart politicians…
(Bloomberg has given around $10M to a PAC supporting Cuomo in the primary and now.)
FWIW.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@oldgold:
There’s this bit too, about Tom Buchanan getting into white-supremacist literature that is a thinly veiled parody of some real stuff that was big at the time:
There’s a good discussion of the background here: reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/m3hw4j/in_the_great_gatsby_tom_reads_white_supremacist/
mrmoshpotato
OT – Go Gators!
Baud
@JoyceH:
Slaveholders don’t care what their slaves think.
iKropoclast
Apparently I missed out on these as a kid. I love children’s media, might have to sample a couple of these.
WTFGhost
@Baud: I know you have a contract *stating* you sold the original “sin” to Sin City/Las Vegas, but I continue to believe there may be something not entirely on the up and up about that contract! Also, the continuing shipments of “sin” don’t seem to have an origin or destination, so the “sin free” statement might not be entirely binding.
Speaking of on the up and up – did I mess up anyone’s kites on the way up here? It’s looking to be a long day.
Jackie
Nigeria next?
no body no name
@Mai Naem mobile:
Bloomberg ran for president because Sanders and Warren were not acceptable to the elite. It ended hilariously with Warren wrecking and ending him but it shows this is entirely consistent with Bloomberg and a lot of our donors. It won’t work as people don’t like Bloomberg.
RevRick
@Baud: Quit dissing my hometown, where I spent nearly half of it in public housing!
Geminid
@Mai Naem mobile: Assemblyman Mamdani took so long to endorse Kamala Harris last year that he never got around to it
Ed. I’m not going to slag Mamdani for that, but I will slag the people beating up on Hakeem Jeffries for not endorsing Mamdani. They are applying a double standard.
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: Glad to know that!
But it’s not the same when we don’t know you’re here. :-)
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: Surely there are some starving children he could feed instead!
rikyrah
Where are they going to go?
Arkansas
Idaho?
Puleeze
Matt McIrvin
@no body no name: And then Sanders’ online fan club became volcanically mad at Warren for doing it, because knocking out Bloomberg wrecked their fragile scenario for Bernie getting the nomination.
rikyrah
@Jackie:
Nigeria 😒😒😒
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks for the pointer.
Like many other famous books, I haven’t read TGG (nor seen any of the movies) yet. Since all authors and their works are products of their times, I’m not sure it’s worthwhile for me to do so at this late date (compared to reading something more current).
But I wasn’t aware of that part of the story. All kinds of parallels to 47 and these days…
Thanks again.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Jackie: And he thinks the Nigerian prince in the email he got was real…
WTFGhost
@schrodingers_cat: You know, the kind of statement you’re making makes me feel you don’t have a well formed objection, but something is rattling around, and you need to pin it down. Sometimes, it’s just FUD, fear, uncertainty, doubt, maybe you hear Republicans cackling evilly and rubbing their hands together maniacally talking about the attack ads they’ll run, and you become afraid that, yes, they will blanket the city with hate, and Mamdani will crash and burn and set back progressives.
Republicans love to pretend that rich people can’t care about less well off people, or, perhaps, that Democrats just hate rich people, and I don’t know which moronic (moranic?) idea it is, but it’s not true. It’s rare that a decent fellow gets a billion dollars or more doing only kindly and decent things, so there’s always suspicion of the ultrarich, which neither picks their pockets nor breaks their leg.
What you’re saying sounds like someone worried about Republicans unloading on a rich person, and afraid it’s a big vulnerability, but it isn’t, so long as he supports what workers want him to.
Anyway
heh, I thought I was the only one.
NotMax
Same threats of flight were bandied about when Dinkins was elected and proved to be emptier that Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.
Anyway
@Geminid: Apples and oranges – He was an Assembly man last year – did we check endorsements of every City council member??! Jeffries is the D leader of the house from the same city …completely different.
WTFGhost
@eclare: Technically, he has guests on very rare occasions, such as Weird Al to play a love song on accordion to North Koreans, and I remember other times when a person showed up briefly, but it’s a rare occasion. Assuming I wasn’t stoned, one episode was a brief visit from John’s extraordinarily long, prehensile, super-powered, penis.
Maybe that is the cause of the confusion, but Trump doesn’t have super-powers, so he should know better.
Geminid
@Anyway: Like I said, people are applying a double standard like you just did.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: There are definitely some aspects of it that haven’t aged well, but as an acid portrayal of a world of wealthy frauds, hypocrites and assholes, it’s pretty effective. As this sort of thing often goes, many people are just attracted to the surface glitter of screen adaptations–they want to go to parties like the ones Jay Gatsby threw.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: I remember that!
Mai Naem mobile
@Another Scott: it’s one thing for Bloomberg to give Cuomo money during the primary but then to endorse him and give him more money when he’s runs as an independent? Not right.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: We recently watched the Redford version. It gets pretty damned depressing by the end.
RevRick
@Baud: Two things made Wall Street. The Erie Canal and cotton (which means the stolen labor of enslaved black people).
The Canal brought access to the American heartland through the Great Lakes, binding the states of the Midwest eastward versus southward via the Ohio-Mississippi.
Between 1820 and 1860, exports of cotton to Great Britain generated a $1 billion trade surplus for the United States. That ill-gotten capital stolen from black bodies went to the one place capital could reliably be deployed— Wall Street. That capital built Northern factories and railroads.
Mai Naem mobile
@Geminid: i admit it’s a double standard but he was an assemblyman whose endorsement wasn’t really important. I just think for Jeffries it looks bad especially since he’s got some very good reasonable excuses for not endorsing Cuomo. All he’d have to say is he ran as an independent after the primary. End of story. He could even use the sexual harassment charges against Cuomo.
zhena gogolia
@Mai Naem mobile: Didn’t he fucking endorse him? Who cares when he did it? The election hasn’t happened yet.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: It’s not a cheerful book.
RevRick
@rikyrah: Those hubs of culture and refinement: Floriduh and Texass.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: I read it numerous times when I was 18-22, but not since. Is it any good?
WTFGhost
@kalakal: heh heh – it makes all their friends mad to imagine a “champagne socialist” so they figure it’s a perfect insult, it makes everyone mad….
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: I haven’t read it since I was that age either.
Mai Naem mobile
I’ll never understand the mindset of a super rich person who still thinks he needs a tax cut in this country. All the legal tax loopholes you already have and use and that’s not good enough. Timothy Mellon has enough money left from his ancestors from the 1800s to spend several hundred million in a single election cycle but he still wants more? The greed is just incredible. It’s like letting a child go at it at several bags of Halloween candy and then they get sick.
Geminid
@Mai Naem mobile: I’m not talking about whether or not Zohran Mamdan should have endorsed Harris and what impact that had. Although, I think Mamdani should have because he won his office running on the Democratic line.
I’m talking about the people claiming he’s entitled to the endorsement of any and all Democratic officeholders, while waving away the fact that Mamdani did not endorse his party’s candidate for President.
“Apples and oranges” my ass.*
* Ed. I know you weren’t the one who used that facile evasion.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks, Prof. Fritzell.
zhena gogolia
@Mai Naem mobile: I know, I do not understand it at all, at all.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Ha!
Jackie
@Jackie: Here’s a more in-depth article re Obama’s long conversation with Mamdani for those interested – plus a lot of quotes from who’s supporting Mamdani – and who’s not:
newsweek.com/obama-offers-support-to-mamdani-report-10976620
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: I have not read it either. We mostly stuck to British and Indian authors for our English Lit classes.
Geminid
@Jackie: I saw some Lefty react to Obama’s endorsement of Mamdani by saying, “he has bent the knee.”
I respect Zohran Mamdani and wish him success as Mayor, and this is not the first time I’ve said that here. But I find some of his fans insufferable.
Jackie
@Geminid: I have to agree with you. It’s interesting how polarizing he is to some. Reminds me in many ways how people first reacted to Obama when he declared his candidacy for president. Hmmmm
no body no name
@Mai Naem mobile:
Money makes people crazy.
Ishiyama
@RevRick: Thanks for this. It is always good to remember history.
mrmoshpotato
@Jackie: An actual adult 1. would try diplomacy first, and 2. wouldn’t announce military intervention to the world beforehand.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Ah, “bend the knee”–that’s not creepy and manosphere-esque at all.
Glory b
@Martin: No, New York was yesterday’s news.
TODAY, its Chicago & Portland.
Please try to keep up /snark/.
Glory b
@Geminid: They absolutely are.
Geminid
@Jackie: My Atlanta friend just texted me:
I expect my friend was watching the speech on YouTube. Obama spoke at the rally in Norfolk this afternoon.
Obama was also slated to appear at a rally with Mikie Sherrill in Newark this evening.
Baud
@Geminid:
Good guy
Surprised Abigail bent a knee though.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, the men are the worst– as always.
Baud
@Geminid:
Nominated!
Glory b
@Mai Naem mobile: Hhonestly, after t he “bend the knee” crowing his supporters did after Obama, I dont want any other black men to endorse him.
I also understand that the DSA has created a rule for membership requiring any DSA elected officials to ONLY endorse DSA candidates, no more endorsing any Dems.
I think that will be a problem.
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
As a genuine, actual Lefty, please take my bright, red sanction to tell any of those ‘Lefty’ wankstaffs you come across they can go fuck a tree right through its bark. Maybe they’ll drill through to some basic common sense.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@schrodingers_cat: Franklyn Roosevelt did that too. His picture had a place of honor in nearly everybody’s home, too.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@TONYG: and perhaps, to eat truly exceptional food (?)
mark
About ten years ago our department at work got a new employee. They hired the new guy at the top of pay scale. Highest paid guy in the department. One of my other coworkers got wind of this and started complaining that our employer was a communist organization. Most people can’t recognize socialism.
BellyCat
“Billionaire Theater”
So say we all…
Suzanne
@Geminid:
Fortunately, none of his fans are running for mayor.
I recognize the personality type that is dissatisfied with everything, in every arena of their lives, and I avoid those people like the plague. They are emotionally draining.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: Or, I guess it should be “Mr. Fritzell,” as you correctly observed the other day.
Jackie
@Geminid:
MSNBC covered/is covering both live. Obama’s speaking at Sherrill’s rally now. :-) Your Atlanta friend probably mixed up the candidates.
BellyCat
@Tony Jay: Wins the internet…
Jay
@Jackie:
The Dog Killer, Temu Hitler, etc have deported several thousand Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian and other Middle Eastern Christian refugees, seeking asylum on the grounds of religious persecution, many with “Protection Orders” from US Immigration Courts, in chains, back to their home Nations and Panama, where many have been murdered or disappeared.
Suzanne
@Jackie:
There’s lessons to be learned from his success so far, and some people seem really resistant to learning them. Not sure why. One could observe and appreciate some aspects of his campaign without being on board with everything he says and does.
In fact, that’s one big lesson: dude seems to be likeable AF, even people who doubt that he can enact some of his policy goals….. even some people who disagree with his policy goals…. he seems to be winning them over. Maybe Dems — the party who struggles with the whole phenomenon of people liking our policy “on paper” but disliking many actual Democrats — should be taking notes.
Note that this is in no way an argument that policy doesn’t matter or that performance/effectiveness doesn’t matter. That’s a binary argument and thus deeply stupid. It all matters. But you have to win power before you can do anything with it.
Jackie
@schrodingers_cat:
Deja Vu of people saying that about Obama.
Jackie
@Suzanne:
Amen to that.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: I’m at, “he won the Dem primary, he’s obviously a brilliant campaigner— let’s see how he does the actual job.”
satby
@Matt McIrvin: Fascinating, thanks for supplying that context.
Kayla Rudbek
@trollhattan: with Paris Green? Although that would spread far too much arsenic into the environment…
schrodingers_cat
@Jackie: Did Obama lead an Uncommitted campaign in the Democratic primary for President when he was an up and coming politician, urging people to withhold their votes.
And I have no idea if Mamdani sat out the presidential election, I have not seen any endorsement of Kamala Harris by him.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: Some people are comparing him to FDR and Obama on the basis of winning of what exactly? Winning a closed primary?
Eyeroller
@zhena gogolia: I don’t believe I’ve read it since high school, but it made quite an impression on me and I remember the main themes and some of the scenes are still quite vivid in my mind, such as when Gatsby shows off his stacks of silk shirts. Perhaps I should reread it.
Geminid
@Jackie: No, my friend does not watch cable TV. He picked up Obama’s speech from earlier in the day on YouTube
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
I compared him to Mandami because you pointed out that he came from money but champions the working man. Just like FDR did.
Jackie
@Geminid: Ah. I have YouTube TV – which is sorta cable/satellite-ish.
Eyeroller
@Jackie: I do not follow news from Africa as much as I should, but I just saw that Mali is on the verge of being taken over by ISIS and this is spilling over into Nigeria.
Nigeria is still struggling with Boko Haram (and Dog help me, I cannot help but think of that as Procol Harum and that’s not funny) and the Nigerian government does not need this additional threat. But there is almost no way that Trump would not make this situation worse.
schrodingers_cat
@Jackie: Talk is cheap. Leading the Uncommitted movement doesn’t make you FDR. What has he done for the poor and working people.
Jackie
@Eyeroller:
Which happens to EVERYTHING he touches.
Jackie
@schrodingers_cat: That wasn’t me who said that.
schrodingers_cat
@Jackie: Sorry. My bad. I wanted to reply to the comment above yours.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Check your links.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I did and edited my comment accordingly.
Geminid
@Jackie: My friend is more or less addicted to YouTube. He watches political podcasts, chess podcasts, demonstrations of how to season cast iron pans, you name it.
I stay away from video myself because text reporting is so much efficient. But I find it’s still worth watching politicians speak because I can a better feel for their personalities.
prostratedragon
@Matt McIrvin: Gatsby was the useful idiot for the Buchanans. His ambition and crummy set of values led him to be their patsy, thinking he was being gallant to a great lady.
Jay
@Eyeroller:
It’s Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), Al Qaida based, not ISIL.
Kinda makes you wonder why the US is deporting Christian Malians and Nigerians back to Nigeria and Mali for persecution.
It is so they don’t pollute that whole “Prosperity Gospel” Old Testament shit with New Testament Christianity?
kalakal
@Another Scott: I’ve never read it either
Hildebrand
@Tony Jay: St. Francis of Assisi came from exceptional wealth. Sometimes folks realize that such wealth is a problem for the world and do something about it.
No, Mamdani isn’t Francis – but sometimes folks do actually learn the right lessons.
Jay
Real “Merkins” prefer Meal Team Six Veterans and “Real Democrats” prefer bipartisan Centrists with a proven record of supporting Wall Street.
Jay
@Hildebrand:
So did Buddha. Dude was a Prince back when it didn’t mean hanging out with Epstein.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Link?
Tony Jay
@Hildebrand:
Yup. Judge people by what they say and what they do, not who or what they were born as. It’s simpler that way.
Eyeroller
@Jay: They’re black and from Africa. It doesn’t really matter that they are Christian.
International news sources say that this group is affiiated with ISIL/ISIS and/or Al Qaida. They are locals who may have shifting or overlapping loyalties. US Dept of State says:
Terrorist groups active in Mali included ISIS-Sahel (formerly ISIS-GS), and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM).
We can’t trust USG sources as much anymore, but this is consistent with other reports of multiple groups, all operating in a similar area and possibly fighting with one another as well as with the official government.
There is also a Tuareg rebellion going on and some of them are secularists.
Regardless, I don’t see any way Trump could improve things.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
google.com/search?q=Mandani%27s+acheivents+in+the+Legislature&oq=Mandani%27s+acheivents+in+the+…
Eyeroller
@kalakal: The Roaring Twenties were a phenomenon in both Europe and the US, but The Great Gatsby is very American.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tony Jay: The second Viscount Stansgate? For example…
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Thank you.
Jay
@Eyeroller:
Then why does Dolt 47 then give a pretend shit and why do USian “so called ” Christians give a pretend shit?
Al Qaida affiliated groups and ISIL affiliated groups kill each other over obscure Hadith’s, fatwa’s, fiqh’s and sunnah’s.
Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, the dominant armed group, is at war with Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, and acts in concert with the Tuareg’s.
prostratedragon
@Another Scott: Not a very long read — “authorized edition” from Scribner is only 180 pages. You can skip the movies, though I think Bruce Dern was very good as Tom Buchanan.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: I’m just saying… this is where New Yorkers are.
Who knows, maybe (in the words of some disreputable Senator) “he’s learned his lesson.” I know he’s met a couple of times with Leader Jeffries who ultimately endorsed him, so… let’s see what he does once in that office.
Or, at least, I’d go that way if I was a New Yorker.
ETA Pfffft. His online supporters are one really good reason to despise the guy! FDR? Obama??? Sheesh. Lord please grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man.
Tony Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Heh. Yeah. Exactly.
All this squealing and frothing about Mamdani, the burning need some feel to find some reason to keep the hate fires burning while everyone else, from Obama on down, seems to be falling in line behind his Democratic candidacy.
New York is likely going to have a Lefty Mayor that the MAGAts are going to lie about and try to turn into a failure. In other news, tomorrow is a Sunday. There’s a war going on, the smart move is to take the bloody win and move on, not root around in the churned up mud fruitlessly looking for ‘proof’ that your way would have won it bigger and better. That’s just… well, that’s just weird.
scav
@Jay: Nigeria has oil?
Eyeroller
@Jay: Some of the Islamist groups in the recent past were apparently killing each other over whether the Earth was spherical or flat, or rain comes from clouds and not from God/Allah. It is all very tiresome.
I have no explanation for why Trump would say he wants to “protect Christians” in NIgeria while also deporting Christian Africans, other than that it probably has little to do with Trump and a lot to do with factions in his administration.
Gretchen
@Jay: So NY has already taken steps toward free busses, affordable housing and affordable daycare in the form of free pre-K for 3 year olds and up. So while what he’s proposing would be crazy-radical here in the suburbs of Kansas, but he’s proposing to build on programs that have already been tried and implemented in New York. That’s more incremental than pie-in-the-sky radical.
And more affordable housing, daycare and transit would have a pretty interested group of voters even here, but they’d have much less likelihood of success.
Eyeroller
@scav: It does indeed, as does Venezuela, of course.
Nigeria is supposedly about half Christian and half Muslim, with a minority practicing indigenous religions. The government has tried to maintain religious freedom. I suppose we’ll have to see how that works out.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: He has not yet done anything to be compared to FDR, Obama and now St Francis, Compare this to the tankie disdain of Kamala Harris, calling her Copmala and the like.
kalakal
@Omnes Omnibus: Good example
Fun fact: He was an MP when he inherited the title and was disqualified from being an MP. The by-election to replace him was held while he was still trying to renounce the title. He won but was disqualified. His Tory opponent Malcolm St. Clair was elected but proved himself to be perhaps the very last honourable and honest Tory. He’d made a promise at the election that when Benn became an ex-peer he’d clear the way for Benn and 2 years later when Benn became an ex viscount St. Clair did just that.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: I agree.
The tankies have their heads up their arses.
But, well… they’re idiots. I don’t think Mamdani is an idiot.
Kind of the way AOC went into Congress leading a protest against Nancy Smash but more recently has not been one of the “dems suck” brigade.
We’re stuck with the guy— AND all the alternatives are worse— so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Jay
@Gretchen:
It’s part of the Faux-ification of the US.
Faux Not The News, makes an accusation, the troll farms pick it up along with the rest of the Reich Wing Media, repeat it ad nauseum,
Then the FTMSM pick it up and launder it as “just asking questions”.
So a guy with a proven track record, with great relationships with the Boroughs, many of the existing communities, who is focused on “Kitchen Table Issues” and expanding existing/proven programs,
Becomes a radical Islamist, radical socialist, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, never been in politics, in Corporatist Centrist Democratic circles.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Tony Jay: I shouldn’t give a shit about this guy. I don’t want to give a shit about him, or Graham Platner for that matter.
But Progressives in this country have, as they are consistently and disturbingly wont to do, made their problems my problems.
So here I am hoping Platner stumbles his way back out of Maine’s Senate race and back into the neo-Nazi hole he crawled out of, and as far as Mamdani’s concerned, I’m not going to root for him to lose, but I will be smiling bittersweetly when his fanbase inevitably turns on him.
Anyway
@Geminid: Whatever. I am not massively online like many of the posters here and am not responding to what people are saying ion twitter or wherever. Still don’t understand why I should care whom a nobody assembly man endorsed, Clearly that matters to you and the online people. Carry on.
Matt McIrvin
@prostratedragon: The interesting thing is that the narrator, Nick Carraway, has so much admiration for Gatsby. Probably in part because they were war buddies, but he regards Gatsby as this noble tragic hero when really he’s a bit of a dope (or at least driven to dopey behavior by a romantic obsession, I suppose)
What makes his pining after Daisy especially tragic, I suppose, is that Daisy is in fact a terrible person, she really doesn’t merit pining after.
Jay
Chris T.
@iKropoclast:
What, like: “Muslims, don’t worry, we’ll protect you by killing all gay people. Gays, don’t worry, we’ll protect you by killing all Muslims.”?
Oh, right, that’s a winning message for Republicans! Dead but safe. Everyone is safe once everyone is dead!
Chris T.
@trollhattan:
Sure, but it burns so nicely. Hence the cycle of burn -> plywood -> burn -> plywood …
I hear they keep it pre-soaked with gasoline now, to make the cycle faster. Soon they’ll just set fire to it while they assemble the store!
Iron City
@schrodingers_cat: In school in U.S. we read TGG but some British authors too. Dickens’ Great Expectations that will be read forever, or as long as there are English teachers that require it. Felt the same about Moby Dick.
Miss Bianca
@Baud: “Grosse Pointe Marxist” was the epithet du jour where I come from.
Miss Bianca
@Another Scott: Why bother to read the Iliad? Or the Odyssey? or the works of Shakespeare, or Jane Austen? I mean, they weren’t written *now*, so what worth could they possibly have?
Sheesh. The Great Gatsby is a banger of a book regardless of when it was written, but it feels more relevant to me now than it did when I first read it in the 1970s. Go read it and then get back to us about how irrelevant it is to modern times.