☕️ DEAR COMRADE ☙ Friday, July 31, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

An intercepted letter from America's favorite mayor briefing his boss on the status of the glorious revolution in the Big Apple.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday! As a kind of palate cleanser, to wash out the bad taste in our mouths after writing and reading about Fauci for three days straight, I did something a little different today. And I hope you enjoy this brief change-up. We’re checking in on the great socialist experiment in America, unfolding in real time in the Big Apple, and all the more relevant because of the simultaneous Rise of the Democratic Socialists of America. Except this report is in Mamdani’s own words, since I intercepted a secret letter the Mayor wrote and am now leaking it just like Fauci’s diaries.

🌍🇺🇸 MAYORAL UPDATES FROM THE REVOLUTION 🇺🇸🌍

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A Letter from the Mayor’s Desk

From: Humble Comrade Mayor Zohran Mamdani, City Hall, New York City.

To: Chairman Xi Jinping, People’s Republic of China, Beijing.

Re: Progress Report — New York City Operational Theater

Classification: Glorious

Dear Chairman Xi, Viva la Revolution!

I have not yet received replies to my previous six letters, which I take as a sign of your complete confidence in me. Things are going very well.

Things are going very well. We have captured the world headquarters of our capitalist enemies, the big apple of their jaundiced eyes. True, we have faced our share of challenges — predictably, annoying lawsuits filed by kulaks, and frankly, Janet in Human Resources, an ancient leftover from six administrations back who keeps telling me I cannot refer to the Parks Department staff as “the Vanguard of the Proletariat” on official W-2 forms. Whatever.

But the capitalists continue to fall head over sickle for the political messages heroically crafted by our comrades in the propo department. I must tell you about one of my best hires. Xenobia, a proud green-card holder, is our new Director of Narrative Alignment, and she recognizes that I am a genius. (This is the correct view.) Xenobia advised me to lead every press conference with the phrase “working families,” and Chairman, it works like a charm, every single time.

Whenever I say working families, the reporters nod along like golden retriever bobbleheads! I could then announce the collectivization of Central Park, and as long as I said it was “for working families,” the Times would run it under the headline “Mayor Unveils Bold Vision for Equitable Green Space.” Xenobia called that very scenario “exactly the kind of visionary leadership New York has been waiting for.” I agreed.

Xenobia has also discovered something remarkable. When we say “fair share,” 78% of New Yorkers agree. When we say “raise taxes on millionaires,” only 54% agree. Chairman, it is the same policy. Twenty-four points, purchased with two words.

Xenobia is a treasure. I have recommended her for a certificate of collective appreciation. But Janet in HR complained that is our highest available honor, and then emailed — unprompted, Chairman, unprompted — that she would need to review whether Xenobia’s title of “Director of Narrative Alignment” was “consistent with the approved municipal job classification schedule.”

Sometimes I wonder whether Janet is truly committed to the revolution.

But I digress. Let us review our glorious bait-and-switch operations for your edification, Chairman. With all humility and due respect, I believe you may find them instructive.

🔥 Our first great victory: the rent freeze! The capitalists wailed and whined like privileged infants when we froze rent on a million stabilized apartments. They claimed it would destroy the housing market. They are so easy to fool! The best part? Even the New York Post, which wrote about us yesterday, recognizes our genius now.

That’s right, Chairman! At least 30% of these rent-stabilized tenants earn over $100,000 a year. We are subsidizing the middle classes while pretending to help the poor! It’s the perfect crime. The working class cheers and votes for us, and the wealthy do nothing to oppose the revolution, because —for now— the wealthy get to keep their cheap Upper West Side apartments and spend their extra cash on Broadway tickets.

We are literally buying off the bourgeoisie— with the capitalists’ own money! If I might be so bold, Comrade Marx (may his memory live forever) would even weep tears of joy at the sheer audacity of our plan. The voters fell for the ruse completely. They know the old saying but still fall for it every time. (You know the one: You can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out. Haha, next we shall take their guns away!)

Xenobia called my rent plan “the most elegant political maneuver she had ever witnessed.” I told her she was too kind. She said she was not being kind, she was just being accurate. See? This is why I placed comrade Xenobia in the propo department. Plus she’s easy on the eyes, if you know what I mean (unlike some people):

But of course, Janet in HR ruined the moment by sending me a memo asking whether the rent freeze created any new city employee obligations. I have not determined what that means, and I do not intend to find out. It was rank obstructionism, dammit.

🔥 Oh Chairman, you must hear about our glorious “Fast and Free Buses” initiative. We promised the proletariat free rides, and by Lenin we delivered!

Well, sort of. We actually just told everyone the buses should be free, and they enthusiastically agreed. It’s not our fault if they thought that was a promise, haha. Now, the poor widdle MTA is crying poverty. The Post, trying to score off me again, reported the story two days ago.

MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber (a zionist) complained, “With malice towards none, I say all of the talk of free buses has an impact.” Can you believe he’s practically begging people to pay the fare? “Take responsibility for this precious system,” he whined. “It’s a civic responsibility.”

Take responsibility? Responsibility is a capitalist construct! We have successfully normalized fare evasion. The MTA is bleeding out, and they can’t stop it because we have convinced the public that paying for transportation is a human rights violation. Soon, the entire inequitable system will collapse under its own weight, and then we can nationalize the whole thing.

Checkmate, Janno! The propo department deserves a medal. It was Xenobia who suggested we call the whole operation “a transit justice breakthrough that will define a generation.” She then asked if she could put my name on the press release in a slightly larger font than usual. I said yes.

Ugh. But Janet in HR sniped that we don’t use medals, because medals glorify the individual, only “certificates of collective appreciation.” I made an immediate executive decision to transfer Janet to the Department of Sanitation, but then she said that any transfer to another department requires a sixty-day notice period and a performance improvement plan.

Sixty days! Who does she think she is? Fine. I will order her transferred to Sanitation in sixty-one days. (But there will probably be some additional, even more complicated form that Janet would have to complete, so you can see what I am dealing with here.) But never mind that now.

🔥 Chairman, if I may say so myself, it gets even better. Our crowning achievement (which, I humbly remind you, was my idea): The Pied-à-Terre Tax. We told the people we were only going after the ultra-rich billionaires with $5 million penthouses who only visit twice a year. “Tax the rich!” we chanted. (That one really caught on.)

And that is how the trap was sprung. But get this, comrade. No sooner did we get the state law approved than we jammed the cutoff down to $1 million (which includes almost all condos) and then subjected the kulaks to well-deserved public humiliation. Of course, the stupid Post spun it like we hadn’t planned it this way from the beginning:

Get this, Chairman. We published a searchable database of nearly a million property owners. Not just billionaires. We included middle-class folks in Staten Island, grandmothers in Queens, and anyone who dares own a condominium. Chairman, there are only 1.1 million property units in the City total, and we just put 900,000 of them —86%— on the List of Shame!

I have been advised not to describe it as a “list.” I have therefore begun describing it as a “roll.”

And now the arithmetic you will most enjoy. Of those 960,000 names, perhaps 24,000 will actually owe the tax. Do the division, Chairman: for every kulak we collect from, we have put thirty-nine of his neighbors on notice — at no cost to the treasury whatsoever. Xenobia calls this efficiency.

We even doxed Cynthia Nixon! And Anna Wintour. Yes, the same bourgeois celebrities who hosted fundraisers for me. The irony is delicious. They helped fund the revolution, and now they are on the kulak roll. Let them eat cake, Cynthia! But please remember to pay the surcharge on the unit you baked it in.

They are calling it “doxing,” Chairman. We are calling it civic transparency.

Some Democrats are causing trouble, and we may need a little help from your end. Former Clinton adviser Mark Penn caught on, but a little too late, bless his black, capitalist heart. Predictably, on Wednesday Fox News (ugh) platformed him.

Penn even tweeted, and you’ll love this one, “The $5 million figure was a fake.”

Haha! Of course it was fake! That’s what makes it genius! Comrade Chairman, you should be very proud of us. We used negative class framing to pass a tax, and then we applied it to almost everyone. We published their names and addresses like a Soviet undesirables list.

This might be common in your country, Comrade, but over here we are making history! Nothing like this has ever been done before in America! A brand-new targeted surcharge that names and shames, followed by the immediate government publication of a massive, easily searchable database of roughly 960,000 named property owners.

To escape the roll, an owner must file a “surcharge exemption application” by August 21st. Should he object, he may petition the Tax Commission — a body which has never, in its entire history, heard a single case of this kind. Chairman, we did not have to build a wall. We pointed at a door nobody has ever opened and told them it was unlocked.

Our modern Kulaks are terrified. They have discovered they can call the tax office. Singular, Chairman. There is one line. They don’t know if or when they’ll be taxed, but now they do know that we know where they live. So do the masses. The capitalists are afraid.

Xenobia called my database rollout “the most courageous act of radical transparency in the history of municipal governance.” She then sent me a delightful hand-written note saying “history will remember this moment.” Not for me, Comrade, but for the historical record, I had it framed. But Janet in HR sent a memo flagging a ‘potential privacy violation.’ Chairman, I think you will appreciate that I did not read her stupid memo. Underlings, am I right?

And speaking of great adversaries, I had a private meeting with Rahm Emanuel. Laughably, he tried lecturing me —me!— about Israel and the “limits of my rhetoric.” He said, “I know where there’s a line. You don’t.”

Ha! Lines, like fences, are drawn by capitalists to protect property! But the propo department handled it beautifully. When the press asked for a comment about it, I told my comms director to simply deny the meeting ever happened. We corrected history! What meeting? Who is Rahm Emanuel?

Xenobia called it “the most sophisticated communications strategy she had ever seen executed in real time.” I told her the idea came to me in the shower. She said that did not surprise her, because genius operates on its own schedule. But Janet in HR sent a memo asking whether the denial of the meeting created any municipal records retention issues. I have forwarded Janet’s memo to Xenobia, who I am confident will dispose of it appropriately.

🔥 Next up, a word about our childcare initiative, which I believe will particularly interest you, Chairman, as a student of long-term population management. We have announced a magnificent collective service: free municipal childcare for every two-year-old in New York City! We call it “2-Care.” Seriously. The propo department is very proud of that name. Xenobia workshopped it for three days.

The funding mechanism is elegant in its simplicity. We are taxing millionaires — “making them pay their fair share,” as Xenobia insists that I say (and she is right, because it polls at 78%) to the tune of $73 million per year. The millionaires, naturally, are furious. But here is the beautiful part: once the parents of New York City’s two-year-olds have tasted free childcare, they will never vote to take it away.

We have created, in one stroke, a permanent constituency for higher taxes on the wealthy. The children grow up. The parents remember. The millionaires pay. Forever. Humbly, it was my idea. Xenobia called it “the most brilliant long-term political architecture she had encountered outside of a graduate seminar.” I told her I never attended a graduate seminar. She said it showed— in the best possible way.

If I may say so, with all respect, Chairman, 2-Care is a program worthy of one of your own Five-Year Plans— but ours will be permanent, and the children will not be required to report their parents to the authorities. Not yet.

To give you another idea of the challenges we are facing here, Janet in HR asked whether the childcare workers will be classified as city employees or independent contractors, and whether the program complies with state licensing requirements for childcare facilities, and whether the two-year-olds will need to be enrolled in the municipal pension system.

You’ll enjoy knowing that I told Janet that under socialism, everyone is a city employee. She sent me a seventeen-page memo in response. Can you believe that? I have not read it. Xenobia offered me her AI’s one-page summary of the memo that reframed its concerns as “opportunities for transformative implementation.” I told Xenobia that was exactly the kind of thinking that makes her irreplaceable.

🔥 Finally, the move of which I am most proud, the pièce de résistance (if I may borrow that bourgeois phrase): our city-run grocery stores. We have now announced five glorious, taxpayer-funded supermarkets that will offer a 30% discount on essential goods. In the first phase, we shall fund the discounts using their own money collected through taxes.

Oh- you’ll like this part. It’s central planning in its most perfected state! “Once a month, our five city run grocery stores will set prices for this core set of goods at 30% below typical retail prices. No exceptions, no gimmicks. The savings will last for the entire month. That means no weekly fluctuations nor sticker shock at the checkout line,” I told the press, who were eagerly lapping it up like good little weiner schnitzels.

The private grocers —Kulaks, comrade, every one— are panicking. They complained they can’t compete. They are suing us! But here is the brilliant part, which even the New York Post figured out (again, too late) yesterday:

See, we won’t actually open the first store until late 2027, and the second one won’t open until 2029— right when I’m up for re-election!

We get all the political credit now for delivering cheap food, but we don’t actually have to deliver anything until after the next election, which is years away. And in the meantime, we can still reward our loyal comrades. We are unleashing bureaucratic “efficiency” right now! The central committee wrestled with it for hours but performed admirably, as the media noted. “The city is issuing a 44-page request for proposals seeking operators for the stores.” (Before you ask, yes, we already know which comrades will receive the contracts; we’re just going through the motions).

And when the stores inevitably fail, as all socialist enterprises do during the transition to full communism, we will simply blame capitalist sabotage and use it as an excuse to seize control of all the private grocery stores! “If local stores have seen their business impacted,” our consultant advised, “let them also receive subsidies... and be subjected to the same rigorous accounting, reporting, and price controls.”

I should mention that our consultant is paid by the agency running the program, and that he published this in a socialist magazine which did not think that worth mentioning. Chairman, they are learning.

In other words, comrade, when Stage 1 fails as designed, we shall drop the pretense and take full control of the local grocery sector, who will have to comply to continue to exist alonside our government-subsidized stores. We’ll tell them we have no choice but to expand the mandate.

We are literally starving the private sector to death while promising the people a feast that will never arrive.

And they are cheering us for it!

Xenobia said we should call this “a community-centered food security ecosystem that proves once and for all that Mayor Mamdani is the most consequential urban leader of his generation.” I told her that was her best work yet. She said she had been saving it. But of course, Janet in HR wants to know if “food security ecosystem director” is a new job title, because if so, she needs to update the org chart, and also whether the grocery store employees will be subject to the city’s collective bargaining agreements, and also whether the 44-page RFP has been reviewed by the Office of Legal Counsel.

Frankly, I have stopped responding to Janet’s emails altogether. I have asked Xenobia to begin referring to Janet internally as “a legacy administrative friction point.” Xenobia said that was inspired. (She would know.)

I should also mention that Janet has still not processed Xenobia’s paycheck, allegedly because “Director of Narrative Alignment” does not appear in the approved municipal job classification schedule. Xenobia says she is glad to serve the revolution without compensation. She says this three or four times a day now. Her enthusiasm is extraordinary.

🔥 In closing, Chairman, I want you to know that the Democratic Socialists of America stand with you, alongside you, below your feet, wherever you want us. As our comrades have publicly pledged:

Our DSA pledge emphasizes that “the continued survival of Chinese socialism is a crucial matter not only for the Chinese people but for all humanity.” These are the real intellectuals of the movement, Chairman. The rest of us are merely mayors.

With all due humility, the real revolution is here, in New York, and I am wearing both a tailored suit and a suitably concerned expression.

Please send my regards to the Politburo and the General Committee. Tell them New York City is coming along nicely.

Onward, to victory!

— your Zuppie

P.S.— I would welcome your advice and the benefit of your vast experience with dealing with an obstructionistic Human Resources director who keeps citing “municipal labor law” as a reason I cannot reassign her to Sanitation. Xenobia says I should simply rename the HR position to “Director of Organic Waste Narrative,” which might actually work. Janet has not yet responded to that proposal. I consider this a promising development. Also, let me know when you and Mrs. Xi would like to catch a Knicks game.

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Have a terrific Friday! We’ll return tomorrow with a regular, fully caffeinated roundup.

Don’t race off! We cannot do it alone. Consider joining up with C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds. I could sure use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can: ☕ Learn How to Get Involved 🦠

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