Mamdani Just Told New Yorkers to Protest Netanyahu and His Own Police Force Is Furious
Mamdani Just Told New Yorkers to Protest Netanyahu and His Own Police Force Is Furious
First Zohran Mamdani spent weeks threatening to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu. Then he had to publicly admit he had no power to do it — one of the more humiliating climbdowns any major American mayor has made in recent memory. And his response to that humiliation was to pivot immediately to encouraging massive street protests against the Israeli Prime Minister during the UN General Assembly in September.
“I think one of the bedrocks of our city is protest… If anyone feels a level of frustration or opposition, protest is something that we will always respect. I leave it to New Yorkers themselves to make that decision,” Mandani said this week.
The NYPD is not impressed.
NYPD Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry didn’t mince words: “The mayor’s activist posturing puts police officers on the street in a terrible position. Protests during the UN General Assembly are nothing new, but when the mayor of the city is actively calling for demonstrations, violent agitators will assume they have permission to cause as much havoc as possible.”
He then added the detail that should make every New Yorker pay attention: the NYPD’s protest response is already “hamstrung by the dangerous lawsuit settlement the city signed over the PBA’s opposition.” Mamdani’s rhetorical gasoline is being poured on a situation where the fire department has already had its hoses cut.
The rank-and-file reactions were equally unsparing. One Manhattan cop noted that officers just came off six weeks of brutal overtime during the Knicks run and World Cup — and now their own mayor is engineering unnecessary chaos on top of it. A Brooklyn cop called Mamdani “nothing more than a cheap politician looking for cheap headlines” who knew perfectly well he never had the power to arrest Netanyahu and is now mobilizing the people most likely to turn a protest into a riot anyway. A department veteran put it most directly: “He should be governing the city and trying to keep the peace, instead of inciting a riot with his rhetoric. He is basically telling the crazy people to do what they want, and there will be no repercussions. If a cop gets hurt, it will be on him.”
Detective’s Endowment Association President Scott Munro added the line that cuts to the heart of the entire Mamdani experiment: he “still acts like he’s leading a protest movement instead of running the largest city in America.” He’s inviting agitators who look for “confrontation and violence” — and it will be the detectives who pay the price when those agitators show up in September.
Munro’s suggested response was appropriately pointed: maybe the 96 unions in the New York State Public Safety Alliance should show up outside Gracie Mansion and let Mamdani experience firsthand what it feels like when someone encourages protests without guardrails. A lawful demonstration, of course.
Here’s the summary: Mamdani failed to arrest Netanyahu, so he’s encouraging his supporters to protest Netanyahu instead — while the police force he spent his entire campaign attacking is stuck managing whatever chaos his rhetoric produces.
He’s not governing New York City. He’s using it as a stage.
The cops doing the actual work know the difference. And they’re done being quiet about it.
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Nearly 150,000 California Mail Ballots Rejected In Primary
California election officials are examining why nearly 150,000 mail-in ballots were rejected during the state’s June primary, with late-arriving ballots accounting for most of the increase.
The higher rejection rate comes despite years of election law changes designed to make voting more accessible and ensure more ballots are ultimately counted.
According to data compiled by the California Secretary of State’s office, 148,241 mail-in ballots were rejected during the June primary, representing 1.73% of all mail ballots returned.
That marks an increase from the 2024 primary, when 108,982 ballots were rejected, or 1.56% of all mail ballots cast.
The largest reason for rejection was ballots arriving too late to qualify under California law.
State data shows that 93,479 ballots were rejected because they failed to meet the state’s deadline requirements.
California allows mail ballots to arrive up to seven days after Election Day, provided they are postmarked on or before Election Day.
Voting experts believe many of the rejected ballots received postmarks dated after Election Day, making them ineligible to be counted even if they arrived within the seven-day grace period.
Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said the timing of postal processing appears to be a significant concern.
“Ballots rejected due to lateness are caused primarily to being postmarked too late to count, not because they arrived too late to count,” Alexander said.
Election experts have questioned whether recent operational changes within the U.S. Postal Service may be contributing to delayed postmarks.
Earlier this year, a group of mostly Democratic U.S. senators wrote to the Postal Service expressing concern that mail-processing changes could affect ballot handling during federal elections.
Updated Postal Service procedures mean postmarks may reflect when mail is processed at regional facilities rather than when it first enters the mail system.
Because processing centers have been consolidated in some areas, election officials have warned that postmark timing could be affected.
Before the June primary, California election officials encouraged voters to mail ballots as early as possible because of potential postal delays.
The June election also featured a highly competitive race for governor, which some experts believe encouraged many voters to wait until the final days before casting ballots.
In addition to late-arriving ballots, approximately 44,000 ballots were rejected because election officials determined the voter’s signature did not match the signature on file.
Another 8,300 ballots were rejected because the return envelope did not contain a signature.
State records also show that 743 ballots were rejected because those voters had already cast another ballot.
Other rejected ballots involved missing ballots inside return envelopes or multiple ballots submitted in a single envelope.
The highest rejection rate in the state occurred in Tulare County, where 3.52% of returned mail ballots were rejected.
Alpine County and Merced County followed closely, each recording rejection rates of 3.36%.
California has frequently faced criticism for taking weeks to complete vote counting after major elections, largely because state law permits ballots meeting certain requirements to continue arriving after Election Day.
Following the June primary, President Donald Trump again criticized California’s election system, while the Department of Justice opened an investigation into election administration in Los Angeles County.
Election experts emphasize that the increase in rejected ballots should not be interpreted as evidence of widespread voter fraud.
A 2025 report by the Brookings Institution found documented cases of mail ballot fraud remained extremely rare, estimating roughly four cases for every 10 million mail ballots cast, The Associated Press reported.
State officials have not identified evidence of widespread fraud connected to the June primary, but the increase in rejected ballots is expected to receive additional scrutiny as election administrators evaluate whether changes in postal operations, voter behavior or election procedures contributed to the higher rejection rate.
