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In November of 2025, Zohran Mamdani—a youthful progressive who, just a few months before, was polling in the single digits—won the mayoral election in New York City. He succeeded in the country’s largest city, home to the highest Jewish population of any city in the world. He achieved this despite the political establishment, billionaires, and media landscape pivoting against him with unusual bipartisan cohesion. For a country that has spent the past decade doubting its own democratic immune system, this is a matter of consequence. It tells us that America may still be able to self-correct when it counts the most.  

As someone who has seen public life in the United States move further away from any moral center—particularly concerning the Middle East, justice, and the worth of Palestinian life—Mamdani’s win represented something I had not experienced in years: American democratic hope.  

Tucson, AZ — AUDIT USA and its Executive Director, John R. Brakey, have filed a Motion for Reconsideration asking the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two, to correct several legal errors in its October 20 ruling in Santa Cruz County v. AUDIT USA. The Court, which sided with AUDIT USA in its Opinion, previously agreed the County’s lawsuit should never have been filed but declined to award attorney fees and sanctions — despite statutes requiring them.

In 2022, Santa Cruz County sued AUDIT USA and John Brakey simply for requesting a copy of an election record – the Cast Vote Record (CVR) – from the August 2022 Primary Election. Although the Superior Court judge promptly dismissed the County’s case, the County continued its unjustified litigation by appealing twice to the Arizona Court of Appeals.

With co-convenor MIKE HERSH doing the honors at GREEP #245 we welcome US Representative Adelina Grijalva of Arizona, elected September 23, now the duly elected USRep with the longest period of denial.

She confirms that the Republicans’ unprecedented refusal to swear her in is “undemocratic” and “dysfunctional to say the least.”

The Denim Revolution’s JENNIE GAGE welcomes the Congresswoman that she voted for in her own home Tucson district.

NY Activist HEIDI VERTAILLER asks how ordinary citizens can end this crisis.

Our Oregon-based Poet Laureate MIMI GERMAN tells of the fascist town council in Waldport that had their duly elected mayor arrested; the town’s citizens are now staging a re-call on the six town council members.

Grassroots theorist GARY KRANE urges pro-democracy activism to stem off the GOP’s fascist putsch.

Legendary Tucson-based democracy activist JOHN BRAKEY reminds us of the essential victory for ballot images in Miami-Dade, Florida.

Our erstwhile engineer STEVE CARUSO underscores the need for a core defense of democracy itself.

Many remember the late Dick Cheney for his service as President George W. Bush’s vice president from 2001 to 2009, shaping the War on Terror. Others remember his multi-decade failing heart--”he has his own parking spot on the ER comedians joked”--and how he shot his 78-year-old hunting companion attorney Harry Whittington in the face in 2006.

Fewer know about his love of put-and-take hunting in which game animals are “put” (released) by an organization and hunters pay a fee to “take” them. Real hunters often disdain such no-chase. no-miss pastimes which use no skill.

In 2003, Cheney’s hunting party killed 417 pheasants at the Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township, PA, Cheney personally killing 70 pheasants and an undisclosed number of ducks. The birds were donated to Rolling Rock Club staff though the pellets had to be removed before they could be eaten.

The next year, on the day after John Kerry was defeated by Bush, the Veep availed himself of Air Force Two to visit Pierre, SD where a motorcade sped him to a Gettysburg area hunting lodge for what was characterized as a victory hunt.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Hundreds of swarming, angry Asian Giant Hornets, the world's largest, stung to death a vacationing American father and teenage son while they were jungle ziplining, reports from northern Laos said.

Daniel Owen, a 47-year-old headmaster of an international school, and his son Cooper, 15, suffered extremely painful deaths on Oct. 15 after they were rushed to a hospital, reportedly conscious, in nearby Luang Prabang.

"It was very, very painful. A lot of stings, more than one hundred, over the whole body," said Dr. Phanomsay Phakan.

"I have never seen a death [from hornet stings] and I have been working more than 20 years," the doctor said, according to the Times of London on November 4.

It was unclear why news of their deaths was not earlier reported, but all media is controlled by the Communist government in tiny, impoverished, landlocked Laos which is surrounded by China, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

The tragedy occurred after the father, son, and a zipline guide climbed up to a tree-mounted platform and harnessed themselves to a long, slightly downward vertical steel zipline.

I was born into an America who's character was reflected by the words on the Statue of Liberty, which are ““Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” All Americans of my generation were proud of that!

The Orange King has turned America into a hell hole that is intent on punishing the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses. It has become the cruelest of countries, governed by psychotically cruel people. The majority of Americans did not vote for this, and many are protesting vehemently, to no avail. Some pretend that this administration will give up power based on an election which is completely delusional. Unbelievably a large minority of Americans support this as if the victims are criminals.

Chris Walker reports on “Trump’s Push to Resume Nuclear Weapons Testing Rests on Falsehoods,” November 3, 2025 (https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-push-to-resume-nuclear-weapons-testing-rests-on-falsehoods). Walker is a news writer at Truthout, and is based out of Madison, Wisconsin. Here’s some of what he writes. 

“This past week, President Donald Trump called on the Department of Defense (DOD) to restart nuclear weapons testing ‘immediately, citing false claims about other countries’ nuclear arsenals and testing.”

“Despite Trump’s suggestion that other countries are testing nuclear weapons, only one country, North Korea, has even tested such weapons in the 21st century. Indeed, most countries ended their nuclear weapons testing in the 1990s. (The U.S. suspended tests in 1992.)”

President Trump endorsing Cuomo over Sliwa the Republican candidate in NYC's mayoral election is a betrayal to the Republican party and I hope diehard Republicans' voters will cast their votes to Mamdani who is the likely winner. Just like the saying goes, "No one likes to ride in a sinking ship."

Justice Department found Cuomo sexually harassing employees in the past is the only reason Trump likes him and they are two peas in a pod.

Let's face it, Trump is a Muslim-hater and he is very desperate to have Mamdani lose because he is Muslim and that is the ugly truth. However, I feel I have better odds of getting hit by lightning than Andrew Cuomo winning the NYC mayoral election.

 Curtis Sliwa said his own children, who were raised Jewish, are "afraid" of Mamdani. Why should religion matters? Sliwa confound me even more when he called Mamdani a "real threat" and that equating a vote for Mamdani is a vote for a "supporter of terrorism" or a "terrorist himself." In other words, a Muslim-American candidate should not be trusted, and s/he could not be a loyal American.

US law prohibits foreign interference in federal and state election