I’ve written countless times in recent years about the model established by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to get its members elected to office. It’s a brilliantly cunning strategy that goes like this: First, the DSA identifies a Democrat-safe, if not guaranteed, district. These are areas where registered Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans; that is, where a Republican candidate has virtually no chance. (RELATED: Mamdani Won, But Socialism Still Lost) Second, the DSA identifies offices in which the incumbent Democrat — typically, a more conventional Democrat, a party person — is highly vulnerable. That part of the process is crucial. It must be a target of opportunity in which the incumbent can be defeated in the party primary. (RELATED: Electing the Image: Mamdani and the Mimetic Turn in Democracy) The individual is morphed into a registered Democrat, joining the party only to subvert and transform it from within. Third, the DSA recruits a member — someone with charisma and political skills — willing and capable of challenging and defeating the incumbent. Someone like an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Zohran Mamdani. Importantly, this person need not be a Democrat. The individual merely needs to be a “democratic socialist.” The individual is morphed into a registered Democrat, joining the party only to subvert and transform it from within. (RELATED: Mayor Mamdani: A Victory for Champagne Socialism) Many informed Democrats are aware of this slick maneuvering and are not happy about it. You might recall the serpentine James Carville screeching about lifetime socialist Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic Party Primary: “But Bernie’s not a Democrat!” No, Bernie never was. The Senate “Independent” way back in 1980 had served as a formal presidential elector to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party. Bernie in 2016 merely adopted the Democrat label to try to get himself elected president. And many of the dupes that comprise the Democrat rank and file willingly pulled the lever for him, giving him an astonishing 13 million primary votes that year, not far behind Hillary Clinton. (RELATED: Comrade With a Condo: The Mamdani Myth Exposed) As for the Democratic Socialists of America, they’ve quite cynically done what Bernie did. Many of their far-left members don’t like the Democratic Party at all. Nonetheless, they’re willing to sign up in order to take on, defeat, and displace a more traditional Democrat and hence bring the revolution to that district or city. A central figure in this strategy was Justice Democrats founder Cenk Uygur, who said, “What we need to do is take over the Democratic Party. We’re going to primary all of the establishment Democrats ….  all vulnerable Democrats.” Collaborating with the DSA and its members-candidates, Uygar declared: “We want hundreds. We want to replace Congress.” He rightly noted that if they could elect to Congress a dozen or two individuals like Congressgirl Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, “People would freak the hell out.” Uygar said that almost 10 years ago. And people are indeed freaking the hell out. The model has worked so successfully that there are now a bunch of DSA members — an organization that proudly calls itself “the largest socialistic organization in the United States” and refers to members as“ comrades” — who are elected members of Congress, as Democrats. They include the very worst, farthest-left members of Congress: AOC, the unhinged Ilhan Omar, and the hysterical, sobbing Rashida Tlaib. They even elected the fire-alarm-yanking maniac Jamaal Bowman, one of the few DSA “Squad” members ultimately booted from Congress, particularly for antisemitism (a common trait among DSA candidates). The DSA has employed this strategy nationwide for a variety of offices at the national and local levels. And most recently, the comrades pulled off quite a coup when one of their own was elected mayor of no less than New York City. There, with the overwhelming assistance of woke, white women under the age of 25, they elected “condo comrade” Zohran Mamdani. (RELATED: Zohran Has Two Daddies) That electoral-mayoral coup has initiated what I might now dub the DSA’s “Mamdani Model.” Inspired by that huge win in the Big Apple, DSA’s comrades are targeting major cities in which the dopy, incompetent incumbent Democrat has made himself or herself fresh meat for the socialists. The DSA revolutionaries lick their chops at this ripe prey. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: The Mamdani Matriarchy Sets Up Shop In NYC) To that end, they’ve eyed up two prime targets on the left coast. In Seattle, just one week after Mamdani’s victory in New York, self-described “democratic socialist” Katie Wilson defeated the utterly incompetent Democratic Mayor Bruce Harrell. Wilson, who in June 2020 advocated for “defunding” and “disbanding police departments,” campaigned on everything from free public housing to government stores, which she would fund by “taxing the rich.” She has been dubbed the “mini-Mamdani.” (RELATED: Cautionary Tales: What Can November 2025 Teach the GOP About November 2026?) And like Mamdani, she won. In Los Angeles, it’s another socialist woman. Her name is Rae Huang. She’s challenging, possibly the dopiest and most incompetent incumbent mayor in America: Karen Bass. In a sane world, the people of Los Angeles would toss out Bass for a Republican opponent. But as with New York City, a Republican essentially has no chance there. They would choose the Devil himself over a Republican. The only person who could beat Bass would be someone else running as a Democrat in the primary. And thus, once again, the democratic socialists have their model and their opportunity. “I am excited and very humbled to announce that I am running for Mayor of Los Angeles, the second largest city in our nation,” gushes Huang. She says that after two decades of “social justice work and organizing,” she’s “running for Mayor to finally see through the changes the LA social justice movement and I have been building for years.” And for this social-justice warrior, “social justice” means socialism. The 43-year-old community organizer is campaigning on a platform of gobs of free stuff, from “free” housing to “free” transportation, as well as such nostrums as “climate resiliency and affordability.” Sound familiar? It certainly should. It’s the Mamdani model, the DSA strategy applied specifically to more big city mayoral races. Will it work? Likely, yes. These things are never certain, of course. As Alex Adkins noted this week in a smart analysis of the Mamdani win, socialism outside of these big cities is not a winner, and even within the cities, it’s sometimes barely a winner. Nonetheless, the DSA has shrewdly identified the exceptional cases where victory is a strong possibility. The Mamdani model proves it. READ MORE from Paul Kengor: New Yorkers Elect ANOTHER Commie Mayor Hammering a Higher Vision for Higher Education: The College of St. Joseph the Worker King Trump! At Long Last, a Crown!

I’m not going to do so well with the “Q” part of the 5QT on my first item. The rest, though? Like lightning. I’m trying to do better, because I know you’re as ready for the weekend as I am. 1. Stay Out of the Bushes It’s probably just a clickbait piece Breitbart ran on Thursday — hell, I won’t deny the clickbait-y quality of sharing it — about a purported re-entry of the retrograde Bush faction into Republican politics. That doesn’t invalidate the need to remain vigilant against this horror resurfacing. Former President George W. Bush and his family are reportedly planning to retake the Republican Party from President Donald Trump once he is out of office, according to a recent report. There are allegedly “rumors” stirring that there is a “plot to end the so-called ‘Bush Exile’” as part of an effort to take control of the GOP from Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) policies, according to the Daily Mail: Now, rumors are stirring of a plot to end the so-called ‘Bush Exile’ and take back the GOP from the so-called scourge of Trumpism. Behind the scenes, and still with deep connections around the country, a shadow Republican Party is lying in wait to take over when Trump is gone. And, while the former president is determined not to publicly criticize Trump — much to the frustration of some of his former aides — he may not be averse to quietly helping to shape the Republican Party’s long-term future. One person, who is described as a “former Bush official,” told the outlet that Trump “knows that there’s no third term option,” while admitting that Vice President JD Vance “has a head start” over other possible Republican presidential candidates in 2028. The former Bush official also predicted that “there will be a big open field within the Republican Party” for the 2028 presidential race, according to the outlet. Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele has also been reported as pleading for the former president to get involved in the party, stating that he has “a voice that would resonate with a lot more Americans,” according to the outlet. This column has covered the subject of Bush Republicanism repeatedly, including in a fairly widely-read piece over the weekend. There is no question the Bush faction — whether it’s actual Bushes, in which case it’s somewhat confusing as to who their candidate might be, or simply the corporatist Washington Generals crowd the Bushes championed — is plotting to restore itself atop the GOP’s power structure after having been dethroned by Trump’s MAGA takeover. (RELATED: Bush Republicanism Can’t Win the Votes We Need to Save America) And so much of this Nick Fuentes/Tucker Carlson imbroglio, which continues to be fanned by a lot of the same people, is a proxy fight by the Bush crowd against Vance as the frontrunner for the 2028 nomination. (RELATED: The Curious Candidacy of JD Vance) If you want to boil this down, just recall the idiocy of the Lincoln Project over the past few years. I don’t know that we’ll see those troglodytes making a comeback in advance of 2028, but the formula — left-wing corporate dollars flowing in behind legacy establishment political consultants (who utterly suck at their jobs, by the way) for the purpose of causing chaos inside the Republican tent and attempting to make MAGA toxic on the Right — is certainly not going away. (RELATED: A Washington Establishment Letter Targets Trump) All manner of horrors are coming. There is no denying we’re going to see the former empire striking back. It should be noted, though, that Bush Republicanism was an adulterated and weak-sauce corruption of Buckleyite conservatism — something that was built, politically speaking, to contend with New Deal liberalism. Bush Republicanism fell apart not just under its own weight, which was considerable, but also because it was utterly ineffective against Obamunism. Genteel politics in the face of not an opponent but an enemy that is happy to incarcerate, impoverish, and ruin its detractors in every possible way will fare about as well as the Polish horse cavalry against the Nazi blitzkrieg. This effort is doomed. It would be nice if they didn’t make it. 2. Temu Obama Swings… and Misses… and Gets a Bat to the Head for His Trouble Hakeem Jeffries really shouldn’t have been out front on the Jeffrey Epstein stuff. The Democrats shouldn’t, to be sure, but Jeffries, whose campaign fundraisers shook Epstein for campaign donations like he was a pecan tree, was especially ill-advised to try to pin the Epstein scandal on Donald Trump in front of all the cameras. Two things went very badly for him as a result. The first was this… Reporter: “Have you spoken to Stacey Plaskett about [her reported texts with Epstein]?” Hakeem Jeffries: “I have not.” Reporter: “Why wouldn’t you?” Jeffries: “She and I have talked and it’s a private conversation that will remain private.”pic.twitter.com/ruDFZlaghQ — Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) November 20, 2025 And then came this… James Comer reads “Brooklyn’s Barack” email on House floor: “Let’s read it to make sure. To Jeffrey Epstein. That’s the real Jeffrey Epstein, not Jasmine Crockett’s Jeffrey Epstein.” pic.twitter.com/XsUFny4Ozu — Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) November 20, 2025 Le ouch. Then he careened into this, in response to Trump’s characterization of that video, the Seditious Six cut this week as sedition… ? BREAKING: Hakeem Jeffries accuses President Trump of making “DEATH THREATS” against Democrat members of Congress, after they advocated for violent insurrection against Trump in the military and CIA. Trump said “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH” and shared a post that… pic.twitter.com/Zgr90qUM6k — Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 20, 2025 And the internet has weighed in with this… I bet Hakeem Jeffries liked the Sombrero better ? pic.twitter.com/rhlRnPaG22 — Old School Eddie (@Old_SchoolEddie) November 19, 2025 A prediction: it might take another couple of years, but Temu Obama is going to come to grief and they’re going to dump him as their leader in the House. I don’t know who’ll take him out or if he’ll just take himself out, but some sort of way this will end. (RELATED: ‘Don’t Give Up The Ship’? Seriously?) 3. The Sharia Ban Bill Needs to Come Soon, and Our National Discussion Needs to Come With It Islam isn’t compatible with Western civilization. The Europeans are proving that. We already know what’s coming. This is coming. WATCH?: NYC Police Department is educating the public on how to properly wear a hijab “Then you put it over and over around your face.” New York has fallen… pic.twitter.com/1AW7h2Gdr5 — Officer Lew (@officer_Lew) November 17, 2025 And that video is from earlier this year, BEFORE Zohran Mamdani won the mayoral election. And this is already here. NYC: Islamic Marxist Zohran Mamdani hasn’t taken control of the city, but jihadists are being permitted to block the entrances to synagogues throughout the city. The NYPD stood by and allowed islamists block the entrance to Park East Synagogue. pic.twitter.com/Ukqgb4NOKl — @amuse (@amuse) November 20, 2025 This Muslim gathering was in Irving, Texas Irving, Texas is the city in Texas where 2 Sharia Law courts are operating, already ruling on over 300 cases Do you understand how serious this Islam situation is America pic.twitter.com/9kKUeI4zQP — Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) November 17, 2025 Banning sharia law is something lots of states have been working on. Sen. Tommy Tuberville introduced a federal ban on sharia in the Senate last month. This needs to move, now. 4. Is This Something? At the Daily Signal, Tyler O’Neil had an interesting story about a TV series that will hit in a couple of months. Here’s the trailer… The Daily Wire’s efforts to become a movie/TV studio have been interesting to follow. There’s a bit of a herky-jerky quality to their offerings — Matt Walsh’s documentaries have been pretty sizable hits, Ladyballers was fun, if not groundbreaking, Run Hide Fight was pretty interesting, and significant if for nothing other than it helped to launch Isabel May into the cultural bloodstream. But there hasn’t been a true tentpole yet, and there isn’t a steady stream of productions coming out of that conservative media outlet. It’s sort of a catch-22 — you’re trying to launch yourself as a streaming service, essentially, where you’re running a bunch of podcasts and news programming to go with your creative cultural products, and to generate the revenue to finance the features you need to sell millions of subscriptions. But to sell millions of subscriptions, you need a steady stream of high-quality content. My sense is that the Daily Wire is in the same no-man’s-land as a few other conservative media companies trying to break through. I just wish I could stream DW’s platform to my TV without an incredibly cumbersome process of accessing the internet and attempting to sign in with the remote control, which was the state of things when I last gave up trying. Who knows? Maybe this, which interestingly reimagines Merlin of the King Arthur legend as a Christian, rather than pagan, character, could be the item that truly launches the Daily Wire into the movie and TV business. 5. This Won’t Do at All You’ve probably heard about the latest public transportation horror, this one in Chicago… ?BREAKING: The Blue Line fire attacker has been identified as a repeat offender, Lawrence Reed . After being arrested for randomly setting a 26-year-old woman on fire, Reed shouted “Burn alive, bitch!”as officers took him into custody. CTA surveillance footage shows Reed… pic.twitter.com/F7zyXmnqHO — I Meme Therefore I Am ?? (@ImMeme0) November 19, 2025 It’s bad. It’s really, really bad. In the initial reporting, we believed Reed had 22 prior arrests. That’s inexcusable enough, but it turns out Reed had 49 prior arrests, including for arson, as well as ten felony convictions. And it seems Reed’s victim didn’t get into an argument with him at all. Reed just approached her, doused her with a flammable liquid, and set her on fire. I don’t have a solution for this. I know what’s inevitable if it isn’t fixed, which is that the victims of this kind of barbarity are going to stop depending on the government to protect them and start arming up and creating militias. I’m actually amazed it hasn’t happened. But it’s coming, and when it does, the cities will descend into Mad Max-style chaos. This is what you have when the people in charge refuse to do their jobs. This is Brandon Johnson’s fault, plain and simple. READ MORE from Scott McKay: ‘Don’t Give Up The Ship’? Seriously? The SNAP Reset, Too Long in Coming, Is a Happy Accident of the Schumer Shutdown Bush Republicanism Can’t Win the Votes We Need to Save America

The passage of a law that mandates the release of government files on Jeffrey Epstein during the anniversary week of the John Kennedy assassination seems fitting. When authorities hide the facts, the people will invent them. And the ones they invent always seem to flatter whatever worldview they hold. The Epstein saga proves this. (RELATED: Why Releasing the Epstein Files Will Likely Undermine Justice) If you hate Israel, then its intelligence agencies stand behind Jeffrey Epstein. If you hate Bill Clinton, then you imagine him living not in Chappaqua but on Epstein Island. If you hate Donald Trump, then his Mar-a-Lago ban on Epstein proves his knowledge and thus complicity in Epstein’s interest in underage girls. (RELATED: The Dog That Didn’t Bark and the Bombshell That Didn’t Explode) In cases in which the public knows the facts, the players actually involved with Epstein rarely show remorse or accept accountability. In cases in which the public knows the facts, the players actually involved with Epstein rarely show remorse or accept accountability. Stacey Plaskett, a U.S. Virgin Islands delegate to the House of Representatives caught soliciting her donor Jeffrey Epstein’s advice by text as she questioned Trump administration figures a few months before Epstein’s death, told CNN that “this was seven years ago,” “as a prosecutor, you glean information where you can,” and, in a TMI-non sequitur mashup, “I lived in a house during childhood with a mother who had been sexually abused by her dad.” Plaskett’s congressional ally Jasmine Crockett refused to second-guess her on the same network and lamely defended her claim — made in the well of the House of Representatives in defense of Plaskett — that Jeffrey Epstein donated to Republican Lee Zeldin when that Jeffrey Epstein was a physician and the other Jeffrey Epstein was long dead. “Listen, I never said that it was that Jeffrey Epstein,” Jasmine Crockett lamely insisted to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins about her calumny of Zeldin and several other Republicans. Her first mistake involved profound stupidity; her second, a lack of honesty. In newly released emails, longtime MIT professor Noam Chomsky calls Epstein “a highly valued friend,” which helps explain why he ran interference for him. “There’s a principle of Western Law that once a person has served a sentence, he’s the same as everyone else,” Chomsky dubiously insisted in a 2020 interview. “This seems to be forgotten.” Chomsky strangely shifted the conversation to philanthropist David Koch, who died days after Epstein. “Is he the worst person to contribute to MIT?” he asked of Epstein. “In my office at MIT, when I was there, I looked out the window of my office and saw the David Koch Cancer Center. David Koch is certainly a candidate for one of the most extraordinary criminals in human history.” On what grounds? Koch gave away more than a billion dollars. A fraction of that philanthropy he directed to Citizens for a Sound Economy, Reason magazine, the Cato Institute, and other libertarian-oriented ventures. In Chomsky’s mind, that apparently condemns him as worse than an enthusiast for sex with underage girls. And in Crockett’s mind, her friend Delegate Plaskett’s commitment to progressive causes gives her a pass for her solicitation of Epstein’s political coaching in 2019. In other words, this remains about politics for politicized actors — just as the Kennedy Assassination did 62 years ago. Then, a Communist in contact with several of the U.S. party’s leaders, struck as an inconvenient villain for Marxists in a post-McCarthy America. By December 1, 1963, the Communist Party of Illinois had released “Who Really Killed Pres. Kennedy?” that claimed “only the Ultra Right and the Southern Racists” benefited from the assassination. It ominously noted that “Dallas is the stronghold of the Ultra Right” and “the John Birch Society.” Later that month in Manhattan, Communists boasted that Mark Lane, a former New York assemblyman and forever thereafter a conspiracy theorist spinning yarns that absolved his political friends and implicated his political enemies in misdeeds, worked on a project to blame the right-wing for Kennedy’s death. All these years later, information on the last assassination of a U.S. president remains hidden, even after Donald Trump ordered so much of it released. One suspects six decades from now, the U.S. government will continue to withhold material pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein despite this week’s legislation. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for conspiracy theories. Darkness is their best proliferator. READ MORE from Daniel J. Flynn: 50-Year Home Loan the Worst Idea Since New Coke Nancy, It’s Nice to Say Goodbye Halloween Came a Few Days Late for Republicans

The Trump administration is sending mixed messages about Chevron’s status as a major producer of oil in Maduro’s Venezuela. As the U.S. amasses military assets off the country’s coast, the White House and conservative media continue to support Chevron’s business ventures there. The ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Venezuela’s socialist regime is shrouded in various narratives that paint the Venezuelan government as nothing more than a drug cartel whose leader is worthy of a $50 million bounty. At the same time, supporters of Chevron suggest that preventing the company from continuing to drill for oil under Maduro’s oppressive thumb undermines American interests concerning migration, energy, and foreign influence. Corporate oil interests are playing a special role in the U.S.’s Venezuela policy. The contradiction reveals an unusual mixture of competing media narratives about Venezuela that influence U.S. foreign policy. The United States designates the Venezuelan government as a narco-terrorist organization while extending licenses for Chevron to allow it to continue operations in Venezuela, bringing in significant revenue to a country whose economy is otherwise frail. The resulting policy is one that provides the Maduro regime with financial resources while simultaneously delegitimizing it in almost every other way. Corporate oil interests are playing a special role in the U.S.’s Venezuela policy. (RELATED: Trump Squeezes Maduro’s Narco-State) The talking points that suggest it is in America’s interest to continue importing oil from Venezuela come directly from Chevron and its messaging apparatus. The company has a longstanding pattern of walking a communications tightrope to obtain exceptional status to continue operating in Venezuela. It has been leading the lobbying efforts to get expanded sanctions exemptions from the Treasury Department as early as 2022. (RELATED: The Soros Footprint in Latin America) Chevron’s years of lobbying and PR acumen have paid off handsomely for the corporation. A limited version of their license was renewed in July amid heavy lobbying, despite Trump’s escalating hostility toward the South American nation. As the Trump administration builds its own story about the Maduro regime to delegitimize his government as a terrorist organization and drug cartel, it has carved out a special place for Chevron so it can continue to operate in the world’s largest oil reserves, amidst the Trump administration’s $50 million bounty on Maduro’s head and massive military presence off the nation’s coast. (RELATED: Unmasking Iran’s Hidden Footprint in the Americas) Oil-related business interests significantly influenced the arrangement between the Trump administration’s Special Presidential Envoy Richard Grenell and the Venezuelan government. Earlier this year, Grenell arranged the “oil for migrants” deal with the Maduro government to the consternation of Venezuela hawks, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who support cutting off business with the authoritarian country. The deal allowed Chevron to renew its license to operate in Venezuela in exchange for the country accepting hundreds of thousands of illegal Venezuelan migrants back into the nation. Grenell has been instrumental in keeping Chevron pumping in Venezuela. According to the Miami Herald, oil businessman “Harry Sargeant III, a major GOP donor who has sought to expand his prior oil and asphalt dealings in Venezuela, worked behind the scenes to facilitate the meeting between Maduro and the envoy, Richard Grenell.” Grenell also echoes Chevron’s talking points in the media about why it should operate in Venezuela, especially regarding Chinese influence in the region. Grenell espouses the same talking points about foreign influence that Chevron’s lobbyists and CEO want him to. In fact, Chevron’s CEO makes almost identical arguments to Grenell about countering Chinese influence to put America first. (RELATED: China Poses a Severe Threat in Panama and Leaves the US With No Choice.) Various outlets, such as The Daily Caller, Fox, The American Conservative, Steve Bannon’s War Room, and others appear to participate in Chevron’s bidding as well (while engaging in MAGA sycophancy), arguing that if Chevron does not operate in Venezuela, its economy will collapse, leading to more migration to the U.S. They also suggest that if we pull out foreign powers like China and Russia will drill for oil that could otherwise be exported to the U.S., benefiting those countries and hurting the U.S. energy sector. These arguments have had the narrow effect of benefiting Chevron without significantly altering Trump’s otherwise hostile stance toward our neighbor to the south.  The Trump administration’s softer stance toward Chevron and its pressure on Maduro may seem contradictory. However, this is precisely what the oil giant and its well-funded influence campaign have worked so hard to accomplish. If Maduro stays in power, this icon of capitalism has carved out a place for it to remain the largest producer of oil in socialist Venezuela while appeasing Washington by massaging Trump’s America First agenda. If Trump ousts Maduro, as seems increasingly likely, Chevron is poised to remain in Venezuela for what The New York Times says would be a “boom in oil investment.” Joey T. McFadden is a writer & commentator with Young Voices, host of “In Response…,” and Blue Co-Chair of the Braver Angels NYC Alliance. READ MORE: Trump Revives the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine Maria Corina Machado Getting the Nobel Peace Prize Is Just Fine The Spectacle Ep. 276: Trump Takes on Venezuela’s Drug Trafficking

by Martin Armstrong, Armstrong Economics: El Salvador passed a law that requires newborns to submit their DNA to a government-wide database. President Nayib Bukele claims genetic verification is necessary to ensure the paternity of the child. “This is not a law against women, but against lies: there will be no more fathers raising children who […]

by Susan Duclos, All News Pipeline: On Tuesday, November 18, for the second time in less than a month a major internet service suffered a catastrophic outage that made websites all over the internet, large and small, inaccessible to global users. While Amazon and Cloudfare deny these internet outages were caused by “attacks,” the very […]