Team Obama Is on Team Mamdani
The emerging coalition of African Muslim socialists is vastly more popular than most Democrats
Aug. 14: Obama has counseled Mamdani as other Dems keep their distance like cowards and hypocrites … Dem leaders are pushing weak candidates for 2026 midterms … EXCLUSIVE Rubio’s human-rights report removed Uganda’s LGBTQ+ death penalty, even though his own travel advisory warns not to go there … Trump’s elite federal DC forces heroically save nation from people brazenly not wearing their seatbelts …
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While other Democratic Party leaders can’t figure out whether they should endorse the Democratic Party nominee for mayor of New York City, Pres. Barack Obama has been advising the candidate, the New York Times reports.
Obama called New York Assembly member Zohran Mamdani after his primary win to offer advice and congratulate him, unidentified sources told Times columnist Mara Gay.
The alliance makes sense, given their similarities and parallels. Mamdani was born in Africa, and Obama was born in the Africa of Donald Trump’s mind. Mamdani is Muslim, the way Obama is on Fox. And both, right-wing media have revealed, are Communists who hate America and its freedoms except for the freedom to get on a bus.
Mamdani’s middle name, Kwame, also means that both men have first names, middle names, and surnames capable of detonating even trace latent racism within a four-mile radius.
In other words, Mamdani is living, breathing, primary-winning proof that Democrats might as well literally be what they accuse you of. And Obama’s not the only member of Team Obama getting on board the Mamdani train because it’s free.
Patrick Gaspard, Obama’s 2008 national political director, is an informal advisor to Mamdani.
Jon Favreau, former Obama speechwriter, is talking with one of Mamdani’s top aides.
Dan Pfeiffer, former Obama senior advisor, is also doing that.
David Axelrod, Obama’s chief campaign strategist, went to Mamdani HQ to meet Mamdani and told Gay he found, “determined, upbeat idealism,” adding, “You may not agree with every answer he’s giving, or every idea he has, but he’s certainly asking the right questions, which is how do we make the country work for working people?”
Ben Rhodes, former Obama national security adviser, just wrote a New York Times op-ed scolding Democratic leaders (though not by name; Heavens to Murgatroyd, never by name) for their Mamdaniphobia and Zohranimus:
“Even when presented with Zohran Mamdani’s campaign in New York — an innovative example of fresh political tactics and policies — many party leaders recoiled. The party seems — quite literally — afraid of its own future. It is past time for Democrats to do what Mr. Mamdani did in his campaign: [Bad idea excised1] … Don’t live in fear of bad-faith attacks. [Bad ideas excised2] … Abandon campaign financing that makes you beholden to donors who make you hypocrites…”
New York’s Democratic senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, have yet to figure out whether Mamdani would be a better mayor than Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa or the two disgraced Democrats who lost the Democratic primary. Neither has House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York City Democrat.
As Gay writes, Team Obama getting on the free Mamdani Express is the “clearest sign yet that Mr. Mamdani is likely to be embraced by the Democratic mainstream, whether the party’s leaders and donors like it or not.” For the record, TFN is more than cool with “not.” Feature, not a bug.
And what exactly is Not-Team Mamdani up to these days? Um, maybe skip the next story, especially if you suffer from heart conditions or suicidal ideation, are pregnant or taking praxolid, or are susceptible to seizures or explosive rage diarrhea.
Democratic Party Leaders Lining Up Losing Slates for 2026
Aaron Regunberg, whose work at the New Republic I find myself turning to a lot, unearths what the Democratic Party leadership has been doing to line up a winning slate of candidates for the 2026 midterms, and maybe just maybe take back just one fucking chamber of Congress please Jesus for the love of Allah and Yahweh and Buddha and Vishnu and Cthulhu and Aslan.
Spoiler: They are shooting themselves in their left foot. Without supporting Medicare For All to treat it.
In Michigan, epidemiologist Abdul El-Sayed and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow are both running strong campaigns for Senate. El-Sayed is backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). McMorrow has raised $2.1 million to El-Sayed’s $1.8 million.
Regunberg says both are good communicators and “strong grassroots fundraisers.” So obviously, CNN reports, Senators Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who heads the Senate campaign committee, are backing…
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI). She is, in Regunberg’s mean words, “not charismatic … not an effective communicator [and] … not a strong fundraiser.” She’s raised less money than her rivals, despite Gillibrand urging big donors to give her big money.
And despite, or because of, the fact that she’s the only candidate to take corporate PAC money. And despite, or because of the fact that she’s backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and is the only candidate who doesn’t oppose America arming Israel with offensive weaponry while it wipes out Gaza.
In the House, a similar dynamic is playing fucking out. Randy Villegas, an educator and local official, is running to take on Rep. David Valadao (R-CA), one of the nation’s most emotionally vulnerable Republicans. So how did the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) respond, Regunberg asked rhetorically and I am now asking rhetorically?
The DCCC recruited Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, the only California Democrat to vote against a state bill cracking down on Big Oil price-gouging. She’s literally known as “Big Oil Bains” at a moment in our history when Big Oil’s assault on our climate is literally already killing people.
Regunberg’s full piece is worth a read. And if you Newsfuckers want to share TFN’s writeup with anyone, you can reach the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee here and the DCCC here. Tell ‘em TFN sent you! (Nicely!)
Rubio Scrubbed LGBTQ+ Death Penalty from Human-Rights Report
EXCLUSIVE Last year, under Pres. Joe Biden, the State Department’s annual report on global human rights led its Uganda section highlighting that nation’s new Anti-Homosexuality Act, which includes the death penalty for “aggravated” homosexuality. Not to be confused with the aggravated heterosexuality now running this country.
Now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has released this year’s report. As has already been reported, the national sections are dramatically shorter (not because there are fewer human-rights abuses), the abuses of Pres. Donald Trump’s allies are largely gone (not because there are fewer), and now they’re listing things like cracking down on inflammatory hate speech against vulnerable people as an abuse of human rights.
And, as I reported over on my original-reporting Substack last night, Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act is now gone. In fact, there’s no mention of any human-rights abuses against LGBTQ+ people at all. In a statement, Congressional Equality Caucus Chair Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) said, “Failing to rectify this censorship will have real—and potentially deadly—consequences for LGBTQI+ people... The State Department must reverse course and restore the LGBTQI+ section to these reports.”
As I reported last night, the Anti-Homosexuality Act was brought into existence by a Ugandan parliamentary prayer network, an offshoot of the U.S. Fellowship Foundation, aka The Family. Rubio is — or at least has been — a longtime Fellowship insider.
As I also reported, we know that these abuses are continuing, despite the State Department erasing them, because they’re still, as of last night, in the State Department’s own travel advisory for Uganda. You can read the whole article, which your support made possible, here.
Trump Says Not Much Will Come Out of Putin Summit, But Much Already Has (for Putin)
Pres. Donald Trump yesterday realized too late that “lower expectations for Russia Alaska meeting” was still on his to-do list. He tried to to-do it anyway.
“There’s a very good chance that we’re going to have a second meeting that will be more productive than the first,” Trump said yesterday. “Because the first is I’m going to find out where we are and what we’re doing.”
It’s not clear why Trump can’t ask his own people where he is and what he’s doing. It’s also not clear why a meeting with Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin would address those questions better than looking at a fucking map of Ukraine.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended tomorrow’s meeting, saying, “for President Trump, a meeting is not a concession.” It is, however, giving Putin things in exchange for jack diddly.
An otherwise-smart piece in the Washington Post buries just what Putin’s already won by getting the summit.
Russian elites are not happy about the war. And Putin needs their support until he can build enough windows to push them all out of.
Now, thanks to Trump, a source with Kremlin ties told the Washington Post, just getting this meeting helps “soothe the Russian elites, for whom this war is a disgrace, and want everything to get back to normal.”
Former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev told the Post the talks also appear to be designed to stave off Trump’s threat of sanctions. This is just how Putin swatted aside Trump’s push for a ceasefire by instead getting Trump to agree to Istanbul peace talks that accomplished nothing except staving off Trump’s push for a ceasefire.
Trump and Rubio say the summit will help them determine what Russia wants. TFN is happy to help: Russia wants the one thing that won’t be at the summit. Ukraine.
(It’s true, Putin does have other objectives. But we know those, too. Eastern Ukrainian territory, not joining NATO, recognizing Crimea as Russia’s, and demilitarizing Ukraine’s military for what reason I couldn’t possibly imagine. Apparently, TFN also requires a summit with Putin!)
MEDIA WATCH We have a new entry in the annual Eurovision Funniest Headline competition:
Federal Forces Save Nation’s Capital from Rampaging Non-Seatbelt-Wearers
Agents from the Department of Homeland (sic) Security (DHS) set up a checkpoint in the nation’s capital last night and saved us all from still-unidentified perpetrators intent on carrying out coordinated broken-taillight driving and non-seatbelt-wearing.
The task force of at least 20 DHS agents included trained officers from Homeland (sic) Security Investigations investigating broken taillights and non-seatbelt-wearing, deployed alongside agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) branch, Enforcement and Removal Operations, enforcing against the removal of seatbelts and working taillights.
At the same checkpoint, actual law-enforcement showed up in the form of protesters who were there to enforce not trivial traffic laws but the U.S. Constitution. More than 100 volunteer protesters showed up armed with slogans of shame.
The volunteer law enforcement wielded handmade signs to warn drivers upstream from the checkpoint that Pres. Donald Trump’s pretend soldiers were fucking life up for everyone. Others shouted advice to drivers, such as to keep their faces shut other than to ask for badge numbers.
Trump’s impotent deployment of federal forces at a time when crime is at a 30-year-low also resulted in arresting someone for driving a dirt bike while not on dirt.
One woman at the checkpoint shouted, “You did this job to protect and serve. Look what they’re doing to you.” They left after two hours. Presumably to look at what had been done to them.
SUBWAY CRIME The guy who threw a Subway sandwich at one of Trump’s DC goons was charged with felony assault on an officer yesterday, after police mustered a chase and caught him. The accused sub hurler is Sean Dunn, a future podcaster who presumably chose his missile from Subway to remind people that Subway used to have a pedophile spokesperson and that Trump still hasn’t released The Epstein Files™.
It’s not known if Dunn had the bread to make bail. But widely seen video of the incident suggests his legal case may be toast.
“We’re going to back the police to the hilt,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said. “So there, stick your Subway sandwich somewhere else,” she added, in an apparent reference to Epstein and Trump raping people.
Three Quickies
Europe isn’t just upping its military spending, like Pres. Donald Trump wanted, it’s creating its own military-industrial-baguette complex like Trump didn’t wanted. Politico reports that big European military forces are dropping or considering dropping the Lockheed Martin F-35 for their people-killing kits. Alternatives include the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Franco-German Future Combat Air System, set to come on line in the 2040s, assuming the climate change we’re not spending defense dollars against permits us to have a 2040s.
A new analysis by Politico shows that of the $32.7 billion in contract savings claimed by the Dept. of Government Efficiency (DOGE), only about $1.4 billion could be verified. And that, of course, doesn’t factor in whatever those contract cancellations will cost us in the future. Plus, none of the savings go back to taxpayers. Congress allocated the money to specific agencies, which still have it. #Genius.
Pres. Donald Trump yesterday announced that new Kennedy Center honorees will include KISS. Because that’s what excellence looks like now. Trump probably recalls long-tongued KISS frontman Gene Simmons from his stint on the sci-fi/fantasy show The Apprentice and his support for Trump in 2016. Trump probably is unaware that Simmons finally figured out that Trump’s an incurious, backward, classless, graceless, fetid-brained, know-nothing, non-book-reading, non-novella-reading, non-instruction-manual-reading, infantile but-not-in-a-cute-way, impulsive but-not-in-a-charming-way, sociopathic, predatory bully/coward. In 2022 Simmons said of Trump, “He’s out for himself, any way you can get there. And in the last election, over 70 million people bought it hook, line and sinker.” A spokesperson said the band is honored, however, and I’m assuming that the band will play Trump’s favorite KISS song, Christine Sixteen.
TCB
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Go get ‘em, kids! Remember, you can get Subway sandwiches everywhere.
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.
“Get out in communities.” Or, here’s a crazy idea, be knowledgeable about what communities actually need and use imaginative empathy to go beyond what communities say they need.
“Mine cities and state legislatures for new ideas. Enlist civil society, faith groups, beleaguered universities and industry in envisioning an alternative future.” We don’t need new ideas. We need to restore the old ones that worked only this time make sure they work for everyone.
I feel like I should start a group called White Men for Mamdani, but I'm sort of afraid there will only be one of me at the inaugural meeting, because most of my demographic is insane.
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Tell ‘em The Fucking News sent you! Be loud; be proud!