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Young Voters Support Openly Socialist Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mandani 

In a spectacular primary victory with national implications, the 33-year-old charismatic socialist Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary race in New York City on June 24. He most assuredly will win the general election and become the next mayor of New York City in the fall. With broad support, especially amongst younger people, Mamdani came from way behind to win in a landslide over former 67-year-old former New York State governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo had name recognition and the support of the Democratic Party establishment. His campaign was well funded to the tune of $25 million donated by superpacs and billionaires. This included a last-minute $5 million infusion by billionaire Michael Bloomberg.

Cuomo was supported by most of the trade union bureaucracy, conservative Black leader Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who is credited with getting Bernie Sanders defeated, and the charlatan Al Sharpton. Mamdani’s popularity skyrocketed when New Yorkers became aware of him and his platform. His campaign recruited 40,000 volunteers who knocked on 1,500,000 doors. 20,000 people contributed small amounts to his effort.

While Cuomo campaigned on fear supporting a policeman on every subway car Mamdani took a radically different approach. His campaign was anchored in the idea that New York should become an affordable city for the working and Middle class people who live there. He advocated a rent freeze; free, fast, buses; free childcare, and city run grocery stores in neighborhoods who need them. He stood up for Palestinians.

The core of Mamdani’s campaign workers resided in the Democratic Socialist of America. He was endorsed by Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Ilhan Omar. Mamdani is the Muslim son of South Asian immigrants. His father is a professor at Columbia University and his mother is a film director. Mamdani himself had served for four years as a State Assembly man from Astoria, Queens. He was born in Uganda and grew up on the west side of Manhattan. He had been active supporting taxi cab drivers who were financially ruined by the intrusion of Uber and Lyft into their businesses. Several committed suicide. Mamdami led a hunger strike and a successful effort to get financial help for them.

Guest – John Tarleton is a co-founder and editor in chief of the Indypendent, a free monthly newspaper and website publishing in New York City since 2000. He’s the cohost of the independent NewsHour on WBAI in New York City.

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Trump v Casa : Presidential Immunity

On June 27, the last day of the Supreme Court’s official term, the 6-member ultra-conservative majority issued one of the most dangerous decisions in its history, which the 3 dissenting judges called “shameful” and a “grave attack on our system of law.”

In three lawsuits consolidated as Trump v, CASA Inc, 22 state attorneys general, several pregnant women who are not American citizens, and a variety of civil rights organizations challenged Donald Trump’s Executive Order banning birthright citizenship.  That’s the principle enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution that all babies born in the United States are American citizens regardless of the citizenship or immigration status of their mothers.   But the June 27 decision didn’t reach the merits of that challenge.

Instead, it dealt with the scope of the injunctions which three different US District Courts in Maryland, Washington, and Mass issued enjoining Trump’s EO.   All of those district courts found that to grant complete relief to the plaintiffs, it was necessary to issue “universal injunctions” which not only restrained Trump from implementing his EO against the specific plaintiffs named in those lawsuits but also restrained Trump from implementing it nationwide. Three different federal appellate court denied Trump’s request to stay those universal injunctions, but last week the conservative majority on the Supreme Court gave Trump a green light to proceed within 30 days against any mother who was not one of the named plaintiffs.

Guest – Stephen Rohde believes that Trump v CASA is a monumental decision that dangerously builds on last year’s disastrous decision in Trump v US, in which the same 6-member conservative majority invented absolute presidential criminal immunity. Steve practiced civil rights and civil liberties law for almost 50 years, and is a prolific author of two books and scores of articles and book reviews on constitutional law and history. He is former President of the ACLU of Southern California and is Special Advisor on Free Speech and the First Amendment for the Muslim Public Affairs Council. He is also host of the new podcast Speaking Freely produced by Ms Studios which is available on Spotify, I Heart Radio and other streaming platforms.

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