New york

The revolution may or may not be televised. But it will be turned into branded merch to be sold through an easy-to-use website. Because Change Takes Courage (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez™️, 2018), the war against the system will be systematically transformed into cuddly swag for internet consumers because, well, capitalism is literally killing us. Reuters reports that AOC is ‘investing heavily in her online store’ in order to fundraise and build ‘the second-term lawmaker's profile nationally.’ See folks, she ain’t grifting — she’s elevating her profile, because clearly not enough people have heard of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, even if she is the most famous congresswoman in the world.

For decades, the American Idol and Eurovision TV talent shows have calculated millions of votes during commercial breaks with barely a hitch. But it only took a few hours this week for New York City, the largest city in the US, to demonstrate just how incompetent local election bureaucrats can be. New York City’s Democratic primary for mayor was thrown into utter chaos on Tuesday after election officials withdrew their initial tabulation of the contest’s ranked-choice voting results, just hours after releasing a tally showing the clear frontrunner ex-cop Eric Adams was in a dramatically tighter race against Kathryn Garcia, the candidate endorsed by the New York Times. Ranked-choice voting allows voters to list up to five candidates on their ballot in order of preference.

New York Well, at least P.J. Clarke’s survived the lockdown ordeal. Founded as a ‘saloon’ by an Irish migrant in the late 19th century, the restaurant-bar is a Manhattan dining icon — and a defiant one at that: it’s housed in a modest two-story building, nestled among the skyscrapers of Midtown East, a relic of an older, redbrick Gotham, refusing to give way to the titans of law and finance who occupy the commanding heights of glass and steel nearby. Reality is a little more complicated than that, of course. These days, P.J. Clarke’s is owned by a consortium of financiers, and before the lockdowns, its patrons very much included the finance bros dressed in their standard-issue uniforms (button-down, slacks, Patagonia vest).

The New York City mayoral race is split between two factions of Democrats: those who cut a tempered figure offering government solutions to the nightmares their own party created and stoked over the last year — and the kooky true-believers with the thousand-yard stare who continue to preach fire and damnation. The current, term-limited mayor, Bill de Blasio, belongs to the latter camp, though most of his fire dances not from brimstone but just above the slide of a bong. His ideological successor, race-hustling civil rights lawyer Maya ‘Defund the Police’ Wiley, who was recently endorsed by her sister-from-another-mister in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, isn’t doing so great in the most recent polling, though still rounds out the top four.

A clip showing a New York City Council candidate gagged and in nipple clamps as a dominatrix poured hot wax on him caused an uproar Saturday. But details surrounding the video's release raise questions that could implicate the alleged victim. The Spectator has discovered the full-length footage of the candidate's BDSM session posted on an anonymous, now suspended, OnlyFans account. In the footage, Weiner, 26, is subjected to various forms of humiliation by a dominatrix in leather chaps, who is his ex-girlfriend. The 30-second scene was posted on Twitter last week by an account named '@smart_mistress', the tweet reading, 'My magnificent domme friend played with Upper West Side city council candidate Zack Weiner, and I'm the only one who has the footage.

Defund the police! The clarion cry of protesters and middle-class warriors everywhere never fails to stir Cockburn’s passions. Slashing police budgets, cutting resources and further increasing crime rates is the most logical step to improving our societies and neighborhoods. Isn’t it? But it transpires that calling for the police to be fleeced of their budgets comes easier if you are Maya Wiley, Democratic candidate for New York City mayor, who lives in a $2.7 million brownstone in a Brooklyn precinct where the crime rate has plummeted in the past year. And Wiley’s partner Harlan Mandel, CEO of the non-profit Media Development Investment Fund, has been paying for a guard to patrol their tiny neighborhood.

Andrew Cuomo is the most shamelessly transparent governor in America. And why shouldn’t he be? The man has never been subtle about who he is — and up until now, it has always worked for him. For the duration of his career in politics, the scion of former New York governor Mario Cuomo was the media’s darling. But times change faster than Dr Fauci’s views on mask wearing. Now Gov. Cuomo finds himself frequently described in the press as a man with ‘mushrooming scandals’. Going from ‘America’s Boyfriend’, as Marie Claire’s Michelle Collins dubbed him, to ‘America’s Delusional and Unstable Ex’ can’t be an easy transition. This has become abundantly clear from Cuomo’s unhinged press conferences.

Andrew Cuomo could murder thousands of senior citizens in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose a single supporter. Earlier this week the New York governor got up in front of local TV cameras for the first time in several months since his non-apology apology to respond to more allegations of sexual harassment. (The national media has apparently checked out.) Instead of feigning regret or acting contrite, Cuomo did a complete 180, saying his accusers were ‘jealous’ and digging in by defiantly declaring ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’ In one sense, it’s all been going wrong for Andrew. There was another damaging report from the New York Times that Cuomo’s top aides concealed more nursing home deaths than previously thought.