November 12, 2025

The Latest Political Scam -- "Affordability" -- Is Really Taking Off

November 12, 2025/ Francis Menton

If you want to run for office as a Democrat, there is a new catchword that you need to make as your main promise: “Affordability.”
As anybody paying attention knows, the cry of “affordability” was the central theme that carried the Democrats to victory in all the big races this year, most notably those of Zohran Mamdani for Mayor in New York City, Abigail Spanberger for Governor in Virginia, and Mikie Sherrill for Governor in New Jersey. The same theme also carried two Democrats to victory as Public Service Commissioners in Georgia — the first victories by Democrats in statewide elections for state office in Georgia since 2006.
But here is the question: Is the promise of “affordability” by these politicians something that has any prospect of being delivered through their proposed policies? Or are the proposed policies instead more likely to be useless, or even counterproductive, thus making the promise of “affordability” a scam from the outset?

November 09, 2025

Update On The Scariest House In Greenwich Village

November 09, 2025/ Francis Menton

It was only just over a week ago — Halloween day, actually — that I had a post on the scariest houses in Greenwich Village.
As the scariest house of all, I picked the one at 80 Washington Place, which had recently been the alleged site of rigged poker games where wealthy marks had gotten fleeced out of millions of dollars.
Today, in a weekly column titled “Gimme Shelter,” the New York Post provides an update on that very house.

November 04, 2025

November 04, 2025/ Francis Menton

My sometimes co-poster and daughter Jane Menton has been absent from these pages, and from political commentary, for a couple of years. In her defense, she has three little kids on her hands.
However, this morning, just in time for today’s election, she had a piece published in the Daily Wire. The subject of the post is Zohran Mamdani’s position on our local electric heat mandate, known as New York City Local Law 97.
The Daily Wire has graciously agreed to allow me to repost the article. Here it is (with an introduction by the Daily Wire editors):

October 31, 2025

October 31, 2025/ Francis Menton

While other places compete for their over-the-top Christmas decorations, here in Greenwich Village the big holiday for house decoration is Halloween. I’ve put together a small collection of some of this year’s scariest houses.
However, one of them is not like the others.

October 23, 2025

October 23, 2025/ Francis Menton

In the early days of this blog — say, prior to about 2020 — I made a regular sport of heaping scorn on the New York Times.
Every week or two I would take a particularly preposterous article and attempt to analyze whether it represented incomprehensible ignorance of the world versus intentional deception of the readership. Or maybe both! More recently, the Times has gotten so crazy, and the craziness so widely recognized, as rarely to justify such an effort on my part.
But then, sometimes I can’t stop myself. Take today’s Times.
As background, yesterday was the occasion of the last televised debate in the three-way mayoral race among Zohran Mamdani (Democrat), Andrew Cuomo (Independent) and Curtis Sliwa (Republican). Election Day is only 12 days away, and early voting starts in two days.

October 17, 2025

October 17, 2025/ Francis Menton

Here in New York City, our mayoral election is less than 3 weeks away. Crazed “Democratic Socialist” candidate Zohran Mamdani continues to hold a commanding lead in the polls, with no signs of any tightening.
Among Mamdani’s announced policies are a substantial increase in the city income tax on “millionaires,” a multi-year rent freeze on rent-regulated apartments, having social workers instead of police respond to domestic violence calls, and having Benjamin Netanyahu arrested if he shows up in town. Meanwhile, at both the City and State levels, destructive and impossible “climate” policies remain in place, like mandates to have 70% of electricity come from “renewables” by 2030 and to electrify most heat in large buildings by the same year.
You might think that panic would be starting to set in among the productive classes. But in fact that does not appear to be the case, at least as far as I can observe. Instead, most people are proceeding as if none of this is real. Are they right?