New york

Mayor Zohran Mamdani made a hospital visit to comfort the victim of a knife attack on a police officer, who was forced to fire his weapon to defend himself. Of course, the bed Mamdani visited was that of the schizophrenic man, Jabez Chakraborty, who charged at police and was shot as a result. It almost goes without saying that New York’s new mayor did not check in on the officer.Face and voice full of strained emotion, Mamdani said after the visit: “No family should have to endure this kind of pain,” referring to the family of the knife-wielder. He made no remarks about the strains on families of police officers whose incredibly difficult, and increasingly thankless job, puts them face-to-face with knife wielding assailants for a starting salary of $60,000.

There was no dancing, let alone prancing, in the Manhattan courtroom as former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro was arraigned on four charges, including narco-terrorism and weapons trafficking, following his capture by American forces on a military base in Caracas on Saturday. Instead, Maduro, whose terpsichorean moves to a musical remix of his “No War, Yes Peace” speech had apparently incurred Trump’s ire, seemed like a shrunken figure as he appeared in prison attire and ankle shackles. “I’m still president,” he stated. But the no-nonsense 92-year-old federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein, quashed his attempt at delivering a personal liberation theology speech.

One of the things I admire about Zohran Mamdani is his candor. You know where you stand with him. Mamdani, who was sworn in a few days ago by Senator Bernie Sanders as New York’s first Muslim mayor and also its first avowedly socialist mayor, makes no bones about his ambitions. He was elected as a “democratic socialist,” he said, and he intends to govern as one. “We will,” he said in the most commented upon phrase from his inauguration speech, “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” “The warmth of collectivism.” If you are not a political simpleton or a conniving totalitarian (or, as often happens, both), that phrase should send a shiver down your spine.

It was a performance worthy of an Oscar or maybe a Tony. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s address at his swearing in ceremony on New Year’s Day electrified the freezing crowd every bit as much as it shocked the Democratic establishment, and perhaps even the 50 percent of New Yorkers who didn’t vote for him. The newly-minted Mayor had the stage, but graciously acknowledged that the real star was socialism. “I was elected as a Democratic Socialist and I will govern as a Democratic Socialist.” He hailed an “era of big government,” vowed to govern “expansively and audaciously” and said he would “set an example for the world.

The radicals are now in charge of NYC. Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has unveiled his transition team and voters who agreed with his diagnosis that “everything is too expensive” will now have to live with the anti-police activists, anti-merit educrats and anti-Zionist radicals running the show. The moderate center is in for a shock.Take Alex Vitale, Mamdani’s “safety advisor” and author of The End of Policing, who seeks to abolish police departments, viewing them as “a tool of white supremacy.” Vitale will collaborate with convicted armed robber Mysonne Linen on Mamdani’s public safety plan. They support Mamdani’s plan to replace the NYPD with a “Department of Community Safety” for a range of police calls.