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This Week:

• Tobin: Netanyahu Didn't Lose the Democrats for Israel
• Mamdani Excludes Jews from Judicial Advisory Committee

• Mamdani's Subsidized Grocery Stores Won't Work

• RJC in the News

• Short Takes
• Week's Best Tweets
• Upcoming Events

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Mamdani Excludes Jews from Judicial Advisory Committee

The New York Times reports:

When Mayor Zohran Mamdani last week unveiled the 18-person committee that will advise him on his judicial nominations, he said the committee reflected the city it served.

But to some observers, something seemed off.

Though Jews make up an estimated 10 percent of the New York City population and represent such a significant share of New York City lawyers that the Jewish lawyer has become a cultural stereotype, the mayor's 18-person committee seemed to have no Jews on it.

The Mayor's Advisory Committee on the Judiciary screens and recommends candidates for appointment to New York City courts. Jewish attorneys have served on the panel under previous mayors.

Mamdani's Subsidized Grocery Stores Won't Work

John Gustavsson explains at National Review why New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's city-owned grocery stores won't work:

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani finally unveiled additional details of his city-owned grocery stores scheme. Prices on all meat, seafood, fresh produce, and 20 other "essential items" such as bread and cheese will be set 30 percent lower than private competitors', with prices updated monthly. With grocery prices having soared since the pandemic, enthusiasm is understandable — though ultimately misguided.

Neither the press conference nor the "vision plan" provided by the city contained any measures to prevent hoarding and reselling, including commercial reselling. Food banks usually deal with this by limiting who can purchase food and the amount each client can purchase. At the five ZohranMarts, however, everyone will be free to enter and shop to their heart's delight.

… With unauthorized reselling already a problem for food banks and SNAP benefits, there is no reason to think it won't be even more of a problem in grocery stores that are open to everyone.

The same, of course, goes for shoplifting. While the stores will be publicly funded, they will be managed by private operators whose losses will be reimbursed by taxpayers in the form of "targeted investment." Even though these operators will be responsible for "managing crime and loss prevention," it is hard to see any seller taking serious measures to combat it when ultimately, the city will be on the hook for losses, and that's on top of the already strong litigation threat all stores face when cracking down on shoplifting.

Wolf Vukovic adds some basic economic principles:

Here's an economics law:

If a grocery store wants to sell food 30% cheaper, one of only four things *must* be true:

1. Its suppliers are accepting 30% lower prices.

2. Its workers are accepting 30% lower wages.

3. Taxpayers are covering the difference through subsidies.

4. The store is operating at a loss, and will soon be out of business.

Prices aren't actually 30% lower - they've just been shifted somewhere else in the system.

No doubt the taxpayers of New York will shoulder that shift, through another burdensome raise in their taxes, to support this unworkable Marxist scheme.

RJC in the News

Politico: 'A disaster for America First': Trump allies fear Netanyahu meeting will pull US deeper into war with Iran

"The one constant and the one area in which there is zero daylight between the prime minister and the president is that under no circumstances will Iran ever have a nuclear weapon," said Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

"And to his credit, despite some of the political costs associated with this, President Trump has remained absolutely resolute in this, and he could very easily do what previous presidents have always done, and just kick the can down the road and make it somebody else's problem."

JNS: AIPAC, affiliates spent 50% more in last 18 months compared to in 2022 midterms

The Republican Jewish Coalition's PAC and super PAC spent 12 times more during the last 18 months than they did during the same period in the last midterm election—$6.6 million versus $519,722.

More than half of that spending so far, $3.8 million, went to defeat anti-Israel Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) in this year's Republican primary.

The Republican Jewish Coalition "is laser-focused on defending Republican-led majorities in Congress and that includes holding our own side accountable," Sam Markstein, the coalition's political director, told JNS.

"There's no place in the Republican Party for those who turn their backs on MAGA or turn their backs on the Jewish community," he said, of the president's "Make America Great Again" movement.

Short Takes

Troy: Dear Diary, I Hope They Don't FOIA You

The embarrassing revelations from Anthony Fauci's diary make me wonder if anyone ever gave him the warning I received when I served in George W. Bush's administration: Be careful what you write down. As Dr. Fauci is learning, anything written down while working for government can become a government record.

Diaries have been part of the landscape since the earliest days of our republic. George Washington kept one, filling it during his early morning "quiet time," when he also wrote letters and handled paperwork. From John Quincy Adams's diary we know that he regularly woke early and swam naked in the Potomac, occasionally with his sons or his valet.

In the modern era, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, both Bushes and Barack Obama all kept diaries, though various in form and regularity. Some would add Donald Trump, although we know his diary by other names: his Twitter feed and Truth Social posts…

NY Post Editors: Team Trump's anti-fraud drive is making more news than anyone can follow

If Team Trump's anti-fraud efforts sometimes look a bit all-over-the-map, that's because the map is so incredibly large.

The feds spend over $7 billion a year, and fraudsters look to cash in on every dime; with Vice President JD Vance on point, the White House has organized a full-court press to fight back.

One day this week, the Justice Department announced it had finally nabbed a fugitive Medicare fraudster on the lam since 2022, who allegedly stole more than half a billion dollars, even as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Medicare-Medicaid czar Dr. Mehmet Oz froze over $1 billion in funding to California and Minnesota over apparent Medicaid fraud.

… All this is robbery of the taxpayers and of the folks these government programs are supposed to help: That should outrage Republicans and Democrats alike.

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