Month: June 2025

Please Don’t Mess Up, New York.

/ Rich Wilkins / 2 Comments

Today’s the New York City Mayoral Primary Election, and I’m not extremely excited. On the one hand, Andrew Cuomo winning is the *good outcome*, which in light of recent years tells you a lot. Cuomo’s fall, from a nearly unbeatable and popular governor that was maligned by the far-left is well documented. I would probably prefer to be telling you today that City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams has a chance, but she doesn’t. Either Cuomo wins today, or a complete lunatic nutbag wins.

That’s probably why we’re in this place- a lot of people really can’t stomach voting for Cuomo, even on the second ballot. Is that fair? Probably not. While one could certainly make him shoulder some blame for his handling of nursing homes during COVID, the sexual misconduct accusations that actually drove him from office turned out to be a dud- not a single prosecutor in the entire state took the Attorney General’s report and turned it into anything near a successful prosecution. I don’t think it matters though. Cuomo is just kind of viewed as a mean, loathsome politician. I think a lot of people have figured out that he’s just not that progressive, and he doesn’t do the necessary virtue signaling to make them feel good.

Here is where the alternative should matter, but doesn’t really seem to. New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani has all but caught Cuomo, thanks to New York’s stupid “rank choice system,” where being someone’s second, third, fourth, or even fifth choice matters. Most voters who don’t back Cuomo at first, just don’t. They’re seemingly not bothered by Mamdani though. Mamdani calls himself a Democratic Socialist, much like AOC, but he’s honestly mostly just a big government liberal. Mamdani has built up a viral support through his proposals and gained thirty points over the past few months. He has the normal support of progressives like AOC and Bernie that the electorate nationally and statewide in New York has repeatedly rejected, and says the normal nonsense about being a socialist. He’s going to freeze rents. He’s going to make buses free in the city. He’s going to force landlords to keep their buildings at 78 degrees, year round. He’s going to make all the city public schools buildings climate friendly. He’s going to crack down on landlords. Basically everything but a unicorn, free of charge. He’s just going to tax the rich to pay for it all. As long as Albany allows him to, which is probably a long shot since the city can’t do a lot of the things he’s proposing currently. But he’ll do it. Trust him.

Look, the difference between being AOC and winning one of these ridiculous, sleepy summer primaries and being Alessandra Biaggi and losing them is often just how many people give a shit and bother to come. If Mamdani was just the garden variety of leftist and running a race to beat Cuomo, honestly who really cares, right? That would normally be my attitude too. If New York wants to elect a 33 year old that’s promising them lots of things he can’t deliver, have at it. The problem is that these optics aren’t staying in the cities. Whether it’s crime in Chicago, homeless people in Los Angeles, or whatever the hell is happening here, Republicans are running against this. Mamdani takes it to the next level though. That next level, the elephant in the room if you will, is his views on Israel. A race for local office is at least partially being energized by a candidate’s views on a foreign country. Any decent politician would avoid that. It’s basically become the backbone of this race. That may not hurt him in this primary. Bloodlust is a political motivator in the era of Trump. This is a New York Primary, a city which did elect us AOC. And it’s hot outside today. Only the most motivated will vote. Maybe this works in this race. That doesn’t mean much good will come of it.

Look, I don’t know this guy personally. Is he an antisemite? I have no idea, but he certainly says a lot of things I would not say about Israel. If you think the Netanyahu government is an atrocious, steaming, stinking turd, I really don’t have a problem with that position, but I find the discussion of whether Israel should exist or not to be fully offensive. I actually doubt this guy would be “welcoming the Muslim Brotherhood to Gracie Mansion,” and other over-the-top nonsense some people are saying. My guess is he’s another really awful big-city Mayor, like a Brandon Johnson type, who does such a dogshit job that basically everyone agrees he’s bad. He’s going to fail to deliver on almost everything he promises, and two years from now he’ll still be ranting and raving about a foreign policy issue he’s both ignorant on and powerless on. Is there a chance he’ll be better? Sure. It’s highly unlikely though, because he’s promising things he can’t delivering on, and talking about issues he holds no authority on. Electing this guy is placing a big bet on what’s likely a small payout.

New Yorkers, I get it, you’re tired of Andrew Cuomo. He’s not nice. He doesn’t try to make you feel good. If he loses tonight though, you will have created the next right-wing boogie man for Donald Trump to point out to suburban swing voters everywhere. You’re loading another gun for J.D. Vance 2028. Do the right thing. Don’t rank Mamdani.

Riley Gaines- A Loser By All Standards

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Sports are hard. Losing is harder. Losing is a part of sports. I try to operate u see the standard that losing alone doesn’t make you a loser. I ran track, cross-country and wrestled in high school, I played baseball and soccer up through seventh grade. I lost a lot. I probably won a little more than I lost, overall, but god did I lose a lot. Losing in individual sports is hard because you’re out there alone to lose by yourself. You can’t blame anybody else. I’d like to think it builds character and teaches lessons. I also tend to think there are less painful ways to do that.

Riley Gaines was a swimmer, a sport that can be as lonely as wrestling or running. You’re in the pool by yourself. Riley Gaines was very good at swimming, and she won a lot. The television screen says she was an SEC champion, and well, that’s pretty great. She finished tied for fifth at the NCAA Championships in the 200 yard freestyle, quite an achievement. Gaines was certainly better at swimming than 99.9% of people are at anything in their lives. If she said that, well, there would be no denying that.

You see though, Riley feels aggrieved. She finished tied with Lia Thomas, a transgender female who swam for the University of Pennsylvania. The NCAA gave the 5th place trophy there on location to Thomas and mailed Gaines her trophy. She still finished fifth, and she eventually got the trophy, I assume. But you know, her feelings. So she start going around and complaining about Lia Thomas being able to compete. Riley doesn’t think trans women should be in women’s sports. The point of my post isn’t to argue and fight about that point, as while I do have concerns about this in combat sports and from a pure fairness angle, I have literally zero expertise on the matter and won’t pretend to know what’s fair and right here. I do know this though- if Lia Thomas wasn’t in the race, if she didn’t even exist, Riley Gaines still would not have won the race. In fact, as I assume it, she would have finished fifth by herself. She would have received the same fifth place trophy, just she would have received it that day. She still would have lost to four other girls. She’s just decided to make it her cause to make sure there’s never anywhere for trans women to compete.

Simone Biles backed off of her attacks on Riley Gaines over the weekend, but I won’t go so easy. Riley Gaines lost a race, quit her sport forever, and cashed in on attacking transgender women. If this were her only cause she had taken up since, I might take it for some sincere issue that mattered to her. It hasn’t been her only issue though. She’s become a pro-life spokeswoman as well, and a surrogate for Trump’s 2024 campaign. Riley Gaines is basically a right-wing hack who happened to finish fifth place in a race once, and now runs around like she finished second to a transgender woman who robbed her of her hard work. She would have finished fifth in that race, regardless. I wonder how many people she has made feel small and unseen by using her considerable talents for this. She may be right, she may be wrong on the merits of her message about the issue. She definitely used this cause to cash in and gain fame and fortune that she probably wouldn’t have gained in the pool.

I hope she’s happy.

Weird New York Results, Explained?

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

It has become a near sacred belief for some folks on the internet that they don’t believe the 2024 Election results. I get it, they’re a nightmare. The idea that nearly 50% of the public would re-elect Trump after everything seems impossible. When you understand how close virtually every Presidential Election other than 2008 has been this century though, it starts to make at least some sense though.

Enter New York, specifically Rockland County where I worked on a County Executive race, more than a decade back. It is a politically peculiar place. It’s a very purple county in suburban New York City. It’s got the highest percentage of Jewish people of any county in America. It’s incredibly diverse in general. It’s got super, super wealthy and very working class people living together. It’s a part of the swing NY-17 Congressional District, one of the most competitive in America. It’s really, really expensive to run a campaign there. And they have a rather significant Hasidic Jewish population, now sitting over 50,000 in the district. They tend to vote together, as a block, getting them the name “the block” amongst politicos. Once the leaders decide who they are backing, and to what level, everyone does their job. It doesn’t fit neat partisan or ideological politics, and so it confuses many political class people who are new to the area. This often puts them at odds with other groups in the county, who don’t particularly love their voting power. The East Ramapo School District there has been controversial, but that’s nothing new.

I’m not shocked that a friend sent me an article about a challenge to their 2024 Election results, but I was immediately skeptical. Rockland is the king of weird election results. What’s more, Vice-President Harris underperformed President Biden and Secretary Clinton in general in New York. Senator Gillibrand was facing weak, token opposition at best, and some of the national hot button issues were less so problems for her. When I first looked at Smart Elections’ Blue Sky post comparing Harris and Gillibrand’s numbers in several voting districts, I immediately assumed they are simply “Block” voting districts, where the Hasidic population chose Donald Trump, but still wanted to vote for the incumbent Democratic Senator. There are absolutely districts in Rockland County where Trump probably won almost every vote, and so did Gillibrand. There are a few problems with my explanation though. First, just having the district number isn’t enough for me today to be sure those were “block” districts. Second, the lawsuit does point to other things, like statistical analysis, that suggests a problem. So it’s possible I’m wrong here.

My guess is that Harris generally underperformed fairly popular incumbents across the state, and Rockland was no different. My second thought is that the lopsided districts will be “block” areas. If anyone knowledgeable on the subject comes across this post, please feel free to keep me updated on this.

A Republican Carpetbagger Wants to be my Congressman

/ Rich Wilkins / 14 Comments

If you’re from the Lehigh Valley and don’t recognize the guy above, it’s ok, you’re not alone. His name is Ryan Crosswell and until we had a Congressional seat he felt he could win by switching parties, he probably had no idea where we were. Unless you’ve been at party events, you haven’t met him or heard the story he wants you to learn.

What is Ryan’s story? Well he grew up in Pottsville of the 9th District of Pennsylvania, not in the 7th where he’s running. He became a Marine, went off to school, graduated law school, and went to work in both the military and for the Department of Justice. He registered to vote as a Republican in North Carolina, Louisiana, and Washington, DC, from what I’ve been told. He has never actually lived in Northampton, Lehigh, Carbon, or Monroe Counties, the counties in the district. Ryan has voted as a Republican through the Tea Party, first Trump Administration, January 6th, Republican attacks on President Biden through his term, and up until this past December. The timeline that was provided to me:

December 2011: Ryan Crosswell registers as a Republican In North Carolina.

July 2014: Ryan Crosswell registers as a Republican in Louisiana.

July 19, 2016: Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination for president. Ryan Crosswell voted as a Republican. 

November 8, 2016: Donald Trump is elected President of the United States. Ryan Crosswell voted as a Republican. 

January 2017: Ryan Crosswell begins working for the Trump administration. 

August 15, 2017: Trump defends white-nationalists: ‘Some very fine people on both sides’ . . . . Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican. 

January 20, 2018: Ryan Crosswell begins his second year working for the Trump administration. 

January 20, 2019: Ryan Crosswell begins his third year working for the Trump administration. 

January 20, 2020: Ryan Crosswell begins his fourth year working for the Trump administration. 

April 23, 2020: Donald Trump suggests injecting bleach will cure COVID. Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican.

January 6 . . . .Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican.. 

June 24th, 2022: Roe v. Wade is overturned. Trump and the Republican party celebrate the decision. Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican.

November 15, 2022: Donald Trump launches his third Republican campaign. Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican.

December 5, 2023: Donald Trump vows to be a dictator on day one. Ryan Crosswell is still voting as a Republican.

May 18, 2024: Donald Trump begins floating the idea of seeking a third term, which is unconstitutional. Ryan Crosswell was still a Republican.

July 19,2024: Donald Trump promises mass deportations if elected. Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican.

July 15, 2024: Donald Trump secures the Republican nomination for a third time. Ryan Crosswell voted as a Republican. 

August 26, 2024: Donald Trump meets with Nayib Bukele to begin planning the  illegal detention of American residents in El Salvador. Ryan Crosswell continues to vote as a Republican. 

October 22, 2024: Donald Trump issues threat to prosecute political rivals. Ryan Crosswell voted as a Republican.

November 6, 2024: Donald Trump wins the 2024 general election.  Ryan Crosswell voted as a Republican. 
December 27, 2024: Ryan Crosswell decides to run for Congress. Changes Washington, D.C., voter registration to Democratic.

To hear the story as it’s told to me, this guy voted as a Republican in the 2012 Election, then again in the 2016 Election, took a job in the Trump Administration in 2017, re-registered as a Republican and voted in the 2020 Election, and was a Republican through the 2024 Election. His story is of course that he registered as a Republican many years ago, in the Bush 43 Administration years, when that President was lying about a war that cost tens of thousands of Americans their lives, trying to open up secret prisons for torture operations not allowed to be carried out in America by law, was firing U.S. Attorney’s without cause, conducting massive unapproved warrantless wiretapping, passing the Patriot Act, and otherwise trampling on the rule of law. His defenders have suggested that Crosswell was not an ideological or active Republican. They say he was non-partisan because of his government work, and really just left his registration alone. He re-registered at least three times as a Republican that I see, and was registered as a Republican for all three of Trump’s runs. He went to work for Trump’s DOJ in 2017. It’s been also provided to me now that while he was mailed a ballot in the crucially important 2024 Presidential Election, he didn’t return it. I definitely have questions. He definitely does not seem to have held any meaningful Democratic views through the Iraq War, Obama years, first Trump Administration, the ending of Roe v. Wade, or at any other pivotal point.

Now, I’m not against converts, particularly given how terrible this Trump Administration seems to be doing. Let’s just say though that the more you tolerated, the more skeptical I am. When Trump mocked the disabled reporter, when he called Mexicans drug dealers and rapists, when the Access Hollywood tape dropped, when he did the first Muslim ban, when he appointed ideological extremists to the Supreme Court, when his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6th, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, when Trump said he wanted to be a dictator, when he accused immigrants of eating cats and dogs, all of that did not cause Crosswell to denounce his Republican registration. What we are asked to believe is that dropping the Eric Adams indictment was the last straw that made Croswell switch parties. Should we believe it? He entered this race on June 9th. He says he left DOJ on February 17th. He bought his websites for his run in December. We know all the things that didn’t make Ryan Crosswell leave the Republican Party. It certainly appears you can add dropping the Eric Adams prosecution to that list. He had made his decision to switch parties and move to a district he never lived in before the Adams’ prosecution was even able to be dropped.

I will say, it’s honorable that Crosswell defended his country, and he has an impressive academic history that suggests he’s a smart person, but our Republican Congressman Ryan Mackenzie can claim those things too, even after he recently voted to take health care from over ten million Americans. Crosswell could have moved home to the 9th Congressional District and ran in the open Republican Primary for 2026, but for whatever reasons he has decided to come run here in the most purple district in the country. The House Republicans will spend millions calling him a hypocrite, a liar, and citing his own contradictory history to make Republicans and Democrats alike hate him. There’s a long campaign to run, and maybe he’ll prove me to be wrong here, but he seems like a tremendous risk for Democrats to take.

Karine is Mostly Right

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

I read today’s Politico piece about Biden Administration alums being mad about Karine Jean-Pierre’s upcoming book. I’ll be honest, I went into the piece expecting to agree with them. I didn’t think she was a very effective Press Secretary. I did think she was self-promoting. I had my biases. Then I read the article. Karine Jean-Pierre is right. From what it sounds like her book is going to say, she’s also writing something that absolutely, positively, without one shadow of a doubt had to be written.

Joe Biden’s White House never behaved as Joe Biden’s White House. It never did feel loyal and authentic to Joe’s brand. I would have guessed that Jean-Pierre was a part of that. It definitely appears not to be so. Her discontent with the decision of party elites to dump Joe Biden in last summer’s “switcheroo” was probably shared by a larger number of people than the margin of defeat for Vice-President Harris. Essentially a group of donors and a few has-been high level Democratic elected officials decided to nuke his re-election over their concerns and nominate someone who could not possibly win (This would have been true with virtually any Democrat, for the record.). What I think is more nauseating for some of us is the continual patting on the back that Beltway Democrats still give themselves for doing this. It failed miserably. There is nothing to be proud of. I was fine voting for Vice-President Harris myself, but I said on the day he dropped that she had no chance. Any non-brain dead Democrat knew the election was over when Biden dropped out.

I rarely read these books, so don’t hold your breath that I’ll read it. I will say this though- I’m glad someone is doing the pushback. While anonymous aides and donors further their narrative through corporate tools like Jake Tapper, the truth is very clear and obviously in front of us- the Democratic Party nuked their only chance to win because many of the people tasked with keeping the party in power never really wanted him anyway. Would Biden have won? His poll numbers were really not all that much changed after his June debate. We’ll never know. The disloyalty to him made it virtually impossible anyone was going to win though. Maybe it was mishandled from the decision to run again, maybe we blew it in June, but who cares? The incompetence at the high levels was laid bare before us, and I’m glad someone said it.