“I believe this is a city of international law.”
—Zohran Mamdani, on ABC News, saying that he would do everything in his power to enforce warrants from the International Criminal Court….which have no authority in the United States, just like the Court itself. He added, “and being a city of international law means looking to uphold international law.”
Gee, do you think this guy is a globalist? The problem is, as usual, Mamdani doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Everything within his power is nothing. An international warrant has as much legal force in the U.S. as Confederate money or a Bazooka Joe comic.
New York City is not a city of international law, and the Communist mayor saying that he “thinks” it is means about as much as him saying, “I am the Lizard King!” or “I believe in the Tooth Fairy.” Cities cannot individually decide to enforce ICC warrants or international law; these are national policy decisions, and New York City as well as the states are bound by U.S. policy.
Oh yeah, this is going to work out real well.
Ethics Alarms 
“…and New York City as well as the states are bound by U.S. policy.”
Tell that to all the “Sanctuary Cities” and states which defy the federal drug laws regarding marijuana. I believe in Federalism but the Supremacy Clause is still a Thing™. There really needs to be a reckoning.
–Dwayne
Sanctuary Cities, in their traditional sense, are choosing to forgo federal money for their own local police forces by not commanding their local police forces to pursue federal laws. And that’s a perfectly constitutional choice to make in our Federal system.
If any “Sanctuary Cities” go beyond – It would be defying federal laws in any instance where the Cities’ political structures actively impeded federal officers pursuing federal laws or actively aiding and abetting the violators of federal law.
But merely being a “Sanctuary City” doesn’t automatically mean a defiance of federal law.
As for Mamdani – there’s nothing he could do regarding Netanyahu without engaging in kidnapping (if he chose to arrest Netanyahu and give him to some external force) or to engage in some kind of sedition if he actually allowed foreign agents to operate freely in NYC to “arrest” Netanyahu.
Sure, ideally. But in practice we’ve all seen example after example of the people running these places actively aiding and abetting the illegal aliens and actively impeding federal officers, demonstrating that on a fundamental level they don’t believe that anyone should ever be deported. The term “Sanctuary City” is a euphemism.
My use of “Sanctuary Cities” in quotation marks was deliberate, but perhaps writing it as “so-called Sanctuary Cities” would have made that point more clearly.
–Dwayne
The rise of the Democratic Socialist of America is creeping me out. They are a creepy crew. They’ve got the mayoralty of New York. Who’d have thought that would ever happen four or five years ago? And AOC is polling as the leading candidate to replace the Senator from Wall Street, er, the Senator from New York, Chuck Schumer. What is up with New Yorkers? They seem totally sanguine about these DSA people.
He’s doing his part for the global intifada.
What is he going to do? Have a secret police that rounds up undesirables into unmarked vans, driving them into a secret garage at UN headquarters on East 45th Street?
Mamdani brands a fact, the cost of things is difficult to match with wages, as an “Affordability Crisis”. When did this crisis start? Has it gotten worse? When I first bought my house 13 years ago, $65K because it was sold “as is” and I was willing to learn and do what was necessary to fix it. Even then $375/mo mortgage meant that I was riding my bicycle 2mi everyday to work because I could not “afford” the gas for a 4mi round trip every day. Prior to this I was walking to work 2mi/day. Prior to this I was renting 6mi away and could afford “rent, gas or food” pick two.
He is only effectively connecting with peoples lived experience, even like Trump. Those people are not concerned with the abstract future of markets, inflation/wage waves and have no vision for how to be valuable to someone else and trade that value for dollars. Though I can sympathize with not comprehending how to make my self valuable to others, what I do have is vision for doing more with less while taking the risk to see the impossible happen with nothing. This vision is not insignificant, so I understand people’s fear and helplessness when they don’t have any guiding principle that elevates their struggle. Without an elevating principle, a politician will easily communicate to their base instinct.
Mamdani seems to hold the belief of actions like seizing the means of production to solve a cost problem in order to solve a profit problem. This is appealing to some, I guess, because of two underlying logical errors. One, they see a surplus and associate that surplus with how their problems would be resolved with the surplus. Unfortunately, 1000 people see 1 surplus and fail to realize 1/1000 of the surplus would not be enough to buy a coffee, much less than resolving their problems. Two, those with the surplus have been branded as evil and undeserving. And people will favor simplicity 99% of the time. Branding is a great way to simplify a complex, don’t make me think issue – “orange man bad” for example. But, wealth at the scale of billions still does not offer solutions for the masses who have masses of expensive problem. Often, nowadays, someone has a surplus because of innovation at scale(Bezos, Musk etc) which began with and has maintained efficiency not slave labor. Yet, the branded fantasy of abusive labor practices and profiteering of the industrial age are as vividly real as the plague of chattel slavery.
But, Mamdani is basically a charlatan as I understand things. Either he is ignorant and does not know that he has no power to accomplish the resolution of the problems on which he campaigned to solve, or he knows that he has no power but the voters are ignorant of how their government works that the only value they have is to the politicians that they vote for.
He reminds me of every kid who ever ran for Student Council, making promises they had zero ability to deliver on- better food in the cafeteria, longer recess, no homework, etc.
Ours were “more dances” and “more recognition for students in the music programs.”
I thought about running and just using every cliche promise I could think of…”40 acres and a mule”…”a chicken in every pot”…”free health care for all”…ok, well, not that last one, but you get my vision.
Oy. That’s not how any of this works, Zohran. One of the reasons the constitution was written was to prevent the states (let alone cities) from conducting foreign policy. Deciding how/whether international law applies domestically is a job for the executive and the courts. I read this as a desperate attempt to satisfy those who voted for him in outrage over the suffering in Gaza. What did they EXPECT a mayor to be able to do about that? Nothing but symbolic virtue signaling. And that’s all this will work out to be. If he ever tried to use NYC cops to arrest Bibi, the feds would intervene so fast it would make his head spin.
Mamdani’s “international law” comment is a thinly veiled condemnation of Israel, which the ICC has declared guilty of genocide against the Palestinians and has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
I am more concerned that New York police officers are being given instruction on proper use of the hijab:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRM8Zr1EyFw/
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