November 28, 2025

Now, on to the news…

Zohran Mamdani campaigned as a chastened reformer who now believes “police have a critical role to play,” but Charles Fain Lehman reports that the mayor-elect’s selections for his transition team tell a different story. Mamdani has tapped leading police abolitionist Alex Vitale and drug legalization advocate Kassandra Frederique to shape his “community safety” agenda.

Read why Lehman thinks these picks reveal the “real” Mamdani on crime and what that could mean for the NYPD and public safety.

Power Line’s Scott W. Johnson notes that perhaps the worst part of the Minnesota Somali fraud cases is the pervasive public corruption they represent.

As Joe Thompson, the first assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the cases, noted to the Minneapolis Star Tribune this summer, “This fraud crisis didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s the result of widespread failure across nearly every level of leadership in Minnesota”—including politicians, agencies, law enforcement, journalists, and community leaders.

“Doubt and cynicism are the order of the day in a state that once prided itself on good government,” laments Johnson of his home state.

Despite their cordial meeting at the White House last week, President Donald Trump and New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani have irreconcilable visions on immigration policy. Trump campaigned on mass deportations. Mamdani, by contrast, has promised to maintain Gotham’s status as a sanctuary city. Both Washington and Gotham have tools at their disposal to frustrate the other’s agenda.

Santiago Vidal Calvo argues that the result of this clash could define Mamdani’s mayoralty. If Mamdani fails to navigate this conflict, he writes, the incoming mayor “risks walking in to precisely the fight Trump wants: a made-for-TV showdown between Washington and a ‘sanctuary city’ mayor who appears more interested in defying the feds than in removing dangerous offenders from New York’s streets.” Read the whole thing here.

In the Autumn 2025 issue of City Journal, David Black writes of how he responded to a sudden Parkinson’s diagnosis by taking a solitary road trip—one haunted by childhood memories of early TV-age New York.

Belatedly trying to “be here now,” Black offers a sharp, moving meditation on aging, illness, and attention. Read it here.

“Everyone with open eyes knew the lockdowns were a scam. The question before us now is whether the sheep have learned anything and will resist the next time stunts like those are pulled. Judging by the number of people I still see driving alone in their cars wearing masks, I’m not hopeful.”

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Lex Orandi, commenting on a new documentary on pandemic school closures

Photo credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images