Iconoclast: Antifa Is All Too Real

“Democratic leaders like Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY)” and “late-night host Jimmy Kimmel” insist that Antifa “does not exist as a group,” remarks Jonathan Turley at Res ipsa loquitur, yet self-identified Antifa individuals and groups recently “put out a hit list poster” against a Turning Point USA leader that resulted in his being “attacked by a person in the signature Antifa black outfit.”

Democrats are “ramping up denials of the very existence of Antifa” to deflect “criticism for their own increasingly rage-filled rhetoric.”

Antifa “avoids typical leadership hierarchies and organizational structures,” but “law enforcement officials, like former FBI Director Christopher Wray,” affirm that “‘Antifa is a real thing.’”

Pension beat: Cali’s Losing Green Gamble

California’s massive public-employee-pension fund CalPERS “lost 71% of its $468 million investment in a clean energy and technology private equity fund” but “won’t explain how,” notes The Center Square’s Kenneth Schrupp.

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The pension fund “says its pension benefits are only 79% funded, leaving the state, and its taxpayers, on the hook for the other 21%.”

To try to close its “pension shortfall of approximately $180 billion,” CalPERS “has multiplied its investments in private equity” investments in solar power, which “have outperformed its other assets,” at least “on paper.”

But “public finance experts say private equity is too expensive, too risky and doesn’t provide enough transparency,” making them inappropriate investment vehicles for pension plans. 

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From the left: Dems Toss Boomers with Bathwater

“The Democratic Party’s generational police are coming after” the Boomers, frets Joe Klein at Sanity Clause: “The party’s leadership is too old, it is said,” so now “we have several races to demonstrate the energy and creativity of youthful candidates v. the woozy exhaustion of the elderly.”

But many younger candidates lack “real-life experience,” and resemble “Zohran Mamdani, a perfect dilettante,” or “Graham Platner in Maine,” a “faux proletarian.”

Nevertheless, “bring on the next generation, some of them,” while keeping in mind that “even the new Democrats are out of step with America, still playing 20th century politics.”

They have few candidates “who are willing to break the party’s identitarian straitjacket.” 

Justice watch: Bragg’s ‘Trial That Never Was’ 

It was the trial that “never happened,” quips the Washington Examiner’s Byron York, referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of President Trump — a topic that barely came up in his debate with his re-election challengers, even though it “was the biggest professional accomplishment of Bragg’s life.”

Why so little discussion? Bragg’s opponents know just 17.6% of Manhattan voters backed Trump in 2024, versus 82.4% for Kamala Harris. 

What’s in it for them if they “tear into Bragg for prosecuting a president so unpopular?”

Still, under Bragg, some serious crime rose and “theft-weary stores” had to “put toothpaste under lock and key,” even as the DA poured resources into pushing a dubious case against Trump.

“Shouldn’t that be something voters consider when deciding whether to reelect him?”  

Libertarian: City-run Grocery Stores Are Losers 

Zohran Mamdani says “New Yorkers should think of city-run grocery stores as a ‘public option’ that would deliver cheaper food by saving on rent and taxes” — and not needing “to make a profit,” grumbles Reason’s Natalie Dowzicky.

Hmm: “In Kansas City, a government-run grocery store scheme lost nearly $900,000 just last year.”

If Mamdani wants to give New Yorkers “access to cheaper groceries,” he should simply “allow Walmart in the Big Apple.”

Mamdani says his plan will improve “access to fresh food” yet studies show all New Yorkers already have it; anyway, “new grocery stores don’t improve food access” or improve “the diets of their surrounding communities.”

Better to put resources into dealing with the homeless, rats and needles littering too many neighborhoods.

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board