November 15, 2025

New York At The Green Energy Wall -- What Is The Exit Strategy?

November 15, 2025/ Francis Menton

When New York passed its utopian Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act back in 2019, it set mandatory targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from the state’s energy consumption. But none of the mandates were scheduled to take effect prior to 2030.
The earliest mandates were: 70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030, and 40% overall reduction in GHG emissions by the same year. (Still more ambitious mandates were also set for 2040, followed by a “net zero” mandate for 2050.). These dates all seemed so terribly far away — plenty of time for somebody to invent some new gizmos in the off chance that new technology might be needed to hit the goal.
Our legislators, innumerate to a person, had bought into the fantasy — peddled by lightweight academics like Mark Jacobson and Robert Howarth, and by grifting promoters like the American Wind Energy Association and investment bank Lazard — that wind and solar were now the cheapest way to make electricity. To abolish the evil fossil fuels, all that was needed was some political will.
The legislators definitely did not pay the slightest attention to the Manhattan Contrarian.

November 12, 2025

The Latest Political Scam -- "Affordability" -- Is Really Taking Off

November 12, 2025/ Francis Menton

If you want to run for office as a Democrat, there is a new catchword that you need to make as your main promise: “Affordability.”
As anybody paying attention knows, the cry of “affordability” was the central theme that carried the Democrats to victory in all the big races this year, most notably those of Zohran Mamdani for Mayor in New York City, Abigail Spanberger for Governor in Virginia, and Mikie Sherrill for Governor in New Jersey. The same theme also carried two Democrats to victory as Public Service Commissioners in Georgia — the first victories by Democrats in statewide elections for state office in Georgia since 2006.
But here is the question: Is the promise of “affordability” by these politicians something that has any prospect of being delivered through their proposed policies? Or are the proposed policies instead more likely to be useless, or even counterproductive, thus making the promise of “affordability” a scam from the outset?

November 09, 2025

November 09, 2025/ Francis Menton

It was only just over a week ago — Halloween day, actually — that I had a post on the scariest houses in Greenwich Village.
As the scariest house of all, I picked the one at 80 Washington Place, which had recently been the alleged site of rigged poker games where wealthy marks had gotten fleeced out of millions of dollars.
Today, in a weekly column titled “Gimme Shelter,” the New York Post provides an update on that very house.

November 04, 2025

November 04, 2025/ Francis Menton

My sometimes co-poster and daughter Jane Menton has been absent from these pages, and from political commentary, for a couple of years. In her defense, she has three little kids on her hands.
However, this morning, just in time for today’s election, she had a piece published in the Daily Wire. The subject of the post is Zohran Mamdani’s position on our local electric heat mandate, known as New York City Local Law 97.
The Daily Wire has graciously agreed to allow me to repost the article. Here it is (with an introduction by the Daily Wire editors):

October 31, 2025

October 31, 2025/ Francis Menton

While other places compete for their over-the-top Christmas decorations, here in Greenwich Village the big holiday for house decoration is Halloween. I’ve put together a small collection of some of this year’s scariest houses.
However, one of them is not like the others.

October 23, 2025

October 23, 2025/ Francis Menton

In the early days of this blog — say, prior to about 2020 — I made a regular sport of heaping scorn on the New York Times.
Every week or two I would take a particularly preposterous article and attempt to analyze whether it represented incomprehensible ignorance of the world versus intentional deception of the readership. Or maybe both! More recently, the Times has gotten so crazy, and the craziness so widely recognized, as rarely to justify such an effort on my part.
But then, sometimes I can’t stop myself. Take today’s Times.
As background, yesterday was the occasion of the last televised debate in the three-way mayoral race among Zohran Mamdani (Democrat), Andrew Cuomo (Independent) and Curtis Sliwa (Republican). Election Day is only 12 days away, and early voting starts in two days.