Mamdani: The Unique Voice of NYC’s First African-Born Mayor

The job is local. The platform is global. This is the fundamental paradox facing every mayor of New York City, a metropolis of 8.5 million souls that also serves as the de facto capital of the world, and the home of the United Nations with its 193 member states. Most nations have U.N. offices in New York as well as missions. It’s arguably the most diverse city on earth, with 180 languages spoken in its public schools.

While the quotidian duties of New York City’s mayor require an obsessive focus on sanitation and safety, subways and schools, the city’s role as U.N. host and its continued role as the world’s financial center thrust its leader onto a geopolitical stage. New York’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, its first foreign-born mayor to be elected in over 50 years, understands this duality better than most. The question is how he will wield it. READ MORE

Trump puts the bad guys on notice: Don’t mess with the ‘hitman-in-chief’

“Hitman: Agent 47” was a fictional movie about a trained assassin who killed the Nigerian warlord Bwana Ovie before his mission to take out the Russian president. It was popularly panned, but did fantastic at the box office.

Hitman: POTUS 45 is a real-time, televised and Twittered political program where the American commander-in-chief whacks Iranian terrorist Qassem Soleimani before setting his sights on the next target. The reviews are still coming in, but 45 is already doing well at the fundraising box office.

Agent 47 navigated foreign cities, used stealth to deceive well-trained security forces and put himself in vulnerable positions before he could pull off the kill. 

POTUS 45 had it relatively easy. He just gave an order to pull a metaphorical trigger.

Agent 47 had plausible deniability and no identity or nationality to make any single country accountable for his murderous actions. 

POTUS 45 made it clear to the whole world that he alone was responsible for the American high-tech hit. As a result, his actions have made it clear to distasteful foreign leaders and adversaries sitting in an office or on a tarmac anywhere that they are fair game. If U.S. advanced military technologies can get a bead on them, they might be next. READ MORE

Trump moves fast and breaks things to disrupt world

Hang out in any Silicon Valley café and the word “disruption” is sure to be uttered at a nearby table. It is the keyword to unlock funding for forward-leaning ideas and the approach toward cutting out the middle man in transactions, leaving behind the inefficiencies in mediation, and burying the slow-to-change and inertia-bound in industry. Disruption is everything and everyone wants a piece of it. Including the American people.

Disruption has hit every industry, from car transportation services to hotel lodging. 2016 brought it to foreign policy when a tried, tested and predictable former secretary of state was turned down for her star turn at the U.S. presidency in favor of a bull in the china shop disruptive agent of anti-globalist chaos and firm believer in realism’s international anarchy.  

As in every case of disruptive change, there are decided winners (Uber, Airbnb) and clear losers (taxis, hotels) and a lot of people out of work and scratching their heads because they didn’t see what just hit them.  READ MORE

To cash in on Kushner influence Saudis must sell their agenda to America

Foreign royalty comes to America to experience the grandeur of the nation, its natural wonders, the success of its industry, the vast complexity of its society, and, ultimately, to do a little shopping.

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, is no different. Except he’s here to buy some very pricey weaponry, a piece of the entertainment industry, and perhaps a few personal baubles. But this is not simply a shopping trip. MBS is also here to deliver the hard-sell.

First on his list, is his desire to woo American financial centers for foreign direct investments in his development schemes, from building a new city to selling off parts of the Saudi cash-cow, the state oil company Aramco. To make his pitch credible, he needs to show that Saudi Arabia is in the midst of dramatic liberalizing reform, but also that the sweeping changes are manageable and that he’s really in charge.  READ MORE