Portable Bohemia Newsletter July 1, 2025

Greetings from the Far Left Coast where I have been reading How to Stand Up to a Dictator by Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Maria Ressa. Ressa’s personal story is as compelling as her determination to stand up for freedom of expression and democracy is inspiring. I read her book at the recommendation of my friend Gary Eaton and heartily pass along the recommendation.

Maria Ressa was born in the Manila in 1963. A year later her father died in a car accident. First her mother took Maria and her sister to live with her great-grandmother. When Ressa was five, her mother moved to the US to join her own mother, leaving her daughters behind. Maria and her sister later moved in with her father’s parents, where her grandmother explained that her mother was no good and had gone to the US to be a prostitute. When she was ten her mother who had returned to the Philippines on a yearly visit whisked her daughters off to America and introduced them to her new husband.

Shy, brilliant, driven, Ressa excelled in school even while adjusting to strange, new surroundings and went on to attend Princeton as a pre-med student, a prospect that pleased her parents. While completing all the requirements for medical school in her first two years, she took excessive course loads to “squeeze in” other interests, comparative literature, Shakespeare, theater, acting, playwriting, psychology, history, and came to realize that her passions were in the arts, not the sciences. Theater became her focus. For her senior thesis she wrote a play reflecting on the situation in the Philippines and her family history that would later be performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland.

Following graduation Ressa was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to return to the Philippines to explore the role of political theater in driving political change. There she fell into journalism by chance after reacquaintance with a childhood friend who was a television news anchor. This led to nearly two decades working for CNN, where she was lead investigative reporter for Southeast Asia.

In 2011 Ressa and three friends and colleagues cofounded Rappler, an innovative online news organization launched as a website in January 2012. The name comes from the root words “rap” in its old-fashioned sense “to discuss” and “ripple” as in “to make waves.” They made some waves exposing corruption and manipulation first in government, then increasingly in technology companies. In 2016 they “began highlighting impunity on two fronts: President Rodrigo Duerte’s drug war and Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook.”

Rappler documented how operatives spreading online harassment, intimidation, disinformation, and election misinformation aligned with the business goals of American-owned platforms, Facebook most of all, because disinformation activities created more engagement, which generated more revenue for the company. In the beginning Ressa had been optimistic about possibilities for internet engagement and building community offered by Facebook. Disillusionment came as developments she welcomed in 2011 were “fine-tuned by the platforms’ business models” and co-opted by state power to fuel “the rise of digital authoritarians, the death of facts, and the insidious mass manipulation we live with today.” Lip service was given to the public good while profit and protecting Facebook’s interests drove everything Facebook did. Now, she writes, “I believe that Facebook represents one of the gravest threats to democracies around the world, and I am amazed that we have allowed our freedoms to be taken away by technology companies’ greed for growth and revenues.”

Predictably Ressa ran afoul of the Filipino government under Rodrigo Duterte for her reporting on state corruption and abuses of power. She was the victim of online attacks, arrested numerous times, and faced the possibility of life in prison on false charges of tax evasion, securities fraud, foreign ownership of Rappler, and cyber libel. As a dual citizen of the Philippines and the US, she could have sought refuge in this country. She chose instead to remain true to the Honor Code she learned at Princeton with its implication that we are responsible not just for ourselves but also for the world around us. She remained in the Philippines to see it through with her colleagues at great personal risk. “After the Nobel Prize was announced in October [2021], Ressa was defiant in her defense of her battle for freedom of expression and independent journalism. ‘What we have to do as journalists is just hold the line,’ she said” (‘Hold the line’: Maria Ressa fights for press freedom under Duterte).

In a ruling made public on 19 June 2025, a Filipino court has acquitted Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa, along with five Rappler directors, in a long-standing anti-dummy case [ed. note: the anti-dummy law relates to foreign ownership of a company that engages in nationalized or partially nationalized economic activity]. Filed in 2018 under the administration of former President Rodrigo Duterte, the case was based on the allegation that Rappler had violated constitutional restrictions on foreign ownership of media.

In its ruling, the court found the prosecution’s evidence “grossly insufficient” to establish any criminal liability. In 2024, the Philippine Court of Appeals had already overturned the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) order to revoke Rappler’s license, affirming that the media outlet did not violate the constitutional ban on foreign ownership.

…

Since 2017, Rappler, Ressa, and her colleagues have been subjected to a sustained campaign of legal persecution and online attacks. A total of 23 legal cases have been filed against them. Ressa and former Rappler researcher Reynaldo Santos still face up to six years and nine months in prison from a 2020 criminal cyber libel conviction, which remains under final appeal before the Philippine Supreme Court. (RSF and the Hold the Line Coalition welcome Maria Ressa and Rappler's acquittal and urge for closure of remaining case, Reporters Without Borders/Reporters sans frontières, June 21, 2025)

Much of what Ressa describes in the Philippines under the governments of Duterte and current president Bongbong Marcos has a familiar ring as we witness the Trump regime’s abuse of power, harassment and intimidation of regime critics, attacks on independent media, the campaign against the universities that just last week saw the president of the University of Virginia resign under pressure from the Justice Department for the crime of DEI.

Democracy is fragile. You have to fight for every bit, every law, every safeguard, every institution, every story. You must know how dangerous it is to suffer even the tiniest cut…

That is what many Westerners, for whom democracy seems a given, need to learn from us. This book is for anyone who might take democracy for granted, written by someone who never would.

Will we hold the line?

Full disclosure. I have a Facebook account I maintain with some reluctance because it makes it easier to stay in touch with family and old friends scattered across the country and because sharing posts on Facebook and BlueSky is what passes for a marketing strategy here at Portable Bohemia.

The US completely totally obliterated Iran’s key nuclear facilities with strikes on Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow in the most sophisticated military operation in human history and put an end to its nuclear program. Or maybe inflicted enough damage to set it back for a few months. At this point what we know is that there is no reason to believe anything that comes from Trump and his blathering mouthpieces, Netanyahu, or Khamenei.

Evolving intelligence assessments are not unusual in the immediate aftermath of a military operation, as full battle damage assessments typically take weeks to produce…

What is unusual, and deeply troubling, is the overt politicization of the intelligence process on a critical national security issue such as Iran. The Trump administration’s rapid efforts to discredit and sideline internal dissent, delay or restrict intelligence sharing with congressional oversight committees, and elevate favorable Israeli intelligence assessments signals a dangerous shift toward politicization. (Brianna Rosen, Intelligence Implications of the Shifting Iran Strike Narrative, Just Security, June 26, 2025)

For now we must hope the ceasefire holds for a while. The down side is that it would only encourage the greatest president in the whole history of the world forever to follow his instincts.

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would almost surely dismiss me as a lousy centrist if they knew who I am. I respect Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez and agree with them to some extent on many issues. I also think we benefit when people like Mikie Sherrill, Abigail Spanberger, and Elissa Slotkin are featured as faces of the Democratic Party. I have reservations about Zohran Mamdani, who may be New York’s next mayor. Yet if I were a resident of the city I would have voted for Mamdani in last week’s Democratic primary and would vote for him in the general election in November.

Mamdani is only the presumptive winner at this point, although Andrew Cuomo has conceded, while we wait for the complicated ranked choice voting system to play out.

The July 1 tabulation could potentially give a clear picture of who won, but the result won’t be official. Further rounds of ranked choice analysis will be done as additional absentee ballots come in until the board certifies the election July 15. (How ranked choice voting in New York)

The primary race came down to Mamdani and Cuomo, the choice of the party establishment, endorsed by Bill Clinton, James Clyburn, funded by big donors like Michael Bloomberg and Trump-supporter Bill Ackman. Cuomo’s record carries more than a whiff of scandal and corruption. As one wag put it, his campaign slogan should have been, “Vote for the scumbag, it’s important.” There may have been other reputable candidates in the primary but none with a plausible shot at coming out on top. Only city comptroller Brad Lander crept into double figures, with 11.3% of the tally as of June 25, helped by publicity when he was roughed up and arrested by ICE agents in a courthouse incident.

It appears that in November Mamdani will face off against incumbent Eric Adams, whose own ethical compass is in need of serious recalibration, running as an independent, Cuomo having another go as an independent or the Fight & Deliver candidate or something, and Curtis Sliwa throwing his tarnished hat into the ring as the Republican candidate (Sliwa lost to Adams by nearly forty points in 2021). I would feel compelled to vote for Mamdani to send these scoundrels packing if for no other reason.

There are still those reservations about Mamdani and his platform, which I will touch on in a moment. The first thing though is the tsunami of malicious, xenophobic, and dumb as a sack of rocks anti-Muslim garbage unleashed against him. Trump’s reflexive smear “a 100% Communist Lunatic” seems almost restrained next to Elise Stefanik’s “antisemitic, jihadist, Communist” and Laura Loomer’s warnings to “[g]et ready for Muslims to start committing jihad all over New York” and “NYC is about to see 9/11 2.0.” Not to be outdone, the always execrable Nancy Mace posted, with a photo of Mamdani, “After 9/11 we said ‘Never Forget.’ I think we sadly have forgotten.” For Stephen Miller, as we might expect, the election shows “how unchecked migration fundamentally remade the NYC electorate,” as if immigrants have not generation after generation fundamentally remade the NYC electorate.

Moderates, Never Trumpers, and the Democratic Party establishment are befuddled or beside themselves with righteous outrage or both. Charlie Sykes is near apoplectic. One can imagine spittle flying as he fumes, “Ack, socialism! Ack, ack!” before rolling out a “defund the police” tweet from 2020 and planks from the Democratic Socialists of America platform that I note with embarrassment I might have endorsed at seventeen writing for our mimeographed, “underground” publication Brass, of which it is to be hoped all evidence has long since perished from this earth unless, heaven forfend, my old friend Phil has copies squirreled away in the wilds of South Carolina’s Upcountry. I am reminded that I have been at this sort of thing for a long time. Ah, but I digress.

Bill Kristol shares objections to Mamdani’s platform while more gracious in giving him his due:

Mamdani really ran a heck of a race. He is a 33-year old state assemblyman who was at 1 percent in the polls in February and ended up scoring a comfortable victory over a three-term New York governor. His imaginative campaign, his skills as a communicator, and his abilities as a candidate are things everyone from every faction of the party in every part of the country should study.

The Economist, another traditionally conservative voice, does likewise:

Left wing he may be, but likeably so. “I actually don’t think Mr. Mamdani’s success is primarily about his ideology. It’s about his talent as a new media-savvy politician,” says Jesse Arm of the Manhattan Institute, a think-tank. “He’s run a really smart messaging campaign.” His social-media posts were positive and down-to-earth.

Out on the other wing, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are giddy. They are also wrong. Mamdani’s positions and platform are not a recipe for Democratic resurgence across the country. In many places they would more likely have the opposite effect. Elissa Slotkin is far more convincing about what Democrats should take from his success:

The message that came across loud and clear to me was number one, people just like in November are still really focused on costs and the economy and their own kitchen table math. And they’re looking for a new generation of leadership. Those were to me the two big takeaways.

That’s why, again, it reinforces for me we may disagree on some key issues but understanding that people are concerned about their family budget—that is a unifying thing for our coalition. The message, at least for me, was clear. (Slotkin interview with Neera Tanden, quoted by Smith, Democratic senator)

Who is Zohran Mamdani anyway? At thirty-three he has been a state assemblyman since 2021. His experience as a foreclosure prevention housing counselor in Queens had led him to run for office. He is the first South Asian man to serve in the New York State Assembly, the first Ugandan, and the third Muslim.

Mamdani came to the US with his family when he was seven and became a naturalized citizen in 2018. His Indian-Ugandan father, Mahmood Mamdani, is an anthropology professor at Columbia, and his Indian mother, Mira Nair, is a filmmaker of distinction (Mississippi Masala, Monsoon Wedding). Both parents are Harvard alumni. Mamdani earned a degree in Africana studies at Bowdoin College and is married to an artist and illustrator originally from Damascus, Syria. His roots as an organizer came early as co-founder of his high school’s first ever cricket team and later Bowdoin’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. He is indeed, as Sykes charges, a member of Democratic Socialists of America.

An in-depth examination of Mamdani’s platform is beyond the scope of this newsletter. Please bear with me as I restrict my remarks to a few examples. His platform includes a rent freeze for people living in rent-regulated apartments, new affordable housing, stricter accountability for negligent landlords, free bus service citywide (in 2023 he joined State Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris to spearhead a pilot program for five free bus routes across the five boroughs), establishment of a chain of city-owned grocery stores focused on affordability, universal childcare for children aged six weeks to five years, and a new Department of Community Safety. As goals these are unobjectionable. Feasibility and implementation are another matter.

His Department of Community Safety proposal affirms that “police have a critical role to play” but fails to supply details about that role beyond being freed from having to deal with a frayed social safety net. “The DCS will coordinate across city agencies, including with the NYPD, creating a whole-of-government approach to improve safety outcomes.” Teams of specialists, including “peers, mental health professionals and EMTs” will be stationed in subway stations, to deal with New Yorkers experiencing homelessness and mental health crises.” More specialists and outreach workers will contact people living on the streets to help people experiencing a mental health crisis navigate their housing options.

My concern is not with this approach, which I support, but rather with challenges and raised expectations that will be more difficult to meet than he acknowledges or supporters may anticipate. A first thought is to wonder where all these specialists will come from, because it sounds like there will be a lot of them. What credentials will be required? What training will they receive? Questions related to feasibility, affordability, and effectiveness will hound this and other proposals on the agenda.

The budget for the Department of Community Safety will be $1.1B, approximately $605M of which represents transfers of existing programs into the DCS, and $455M of which represents new funding needs. It will be funded by better use of existing funding, finding government efficiencies, and cutting waste—combined with newly generated revenue where needed.

Well and good. But. Finding efficiencies and cutting waste in government has become a magic elixir for managing the budget, whether to pay for favored programs or to balance tax cuts whose primary beneficiaries are the most well off among us. Even a blockhead should have learned from Elon Musk and the DOGE fiasco that none of this is easy-peasy. What ends up happening is that programs found objectionable on political and ideological grounds get defined as waste, fraud, and abuse. Wholesale reductions and cuts are later found to have unanticipated consequences. As for taxing the heck out of the wealthy, which I am all for, that always gets serious blowback. Can sufficient revenue to be deliver on all the promises really be raised this way?

If Mamdani becomes mayor, the Democratic Party will have a huge stake in his success or failure. Fear that any snafus will be a boon for the Trump Republican Party is well founded. Adversaries will lay blame not just on Mamdani but also on the Democratic Party. Trump can be counted on to undermine a Mamdani administration at every turn. Already he threatens to withhold federal funds if Mamdani does not “behave” and “do the right thing.” Elements of the billionaire class are expected to throw money at the Adams campaign, or possibly Cuomo again, and summon the specter of wealth leaving town if Mamdani takes power. Here might be an interesting subject for research: How monolithic is the billionaire class? How representative is, say, hedge fund guy Bill Ackman (estimated net worth north of $9 billion), who says he is ready to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the campaign of a centrist candidate (whatever his idea of centrist might be)?

Much will hinge on Mamdani himself. How adaptable will he be when his very progressive agenda runs up against inevitable snags and roadblocks? Implementation of his programs would take time in the best of circumstances, with tangible results still further down the road. How patient will his supporters be? How skillful will he be at forming coalitions, how willing to compromise, how able to communicate compromises to elements of his base no more amenable to compromise than their MAGA doppelgängers?

Among other things he needs better responses to questions about Israel and the Palestinians because his adversaries are going to pound him on this. For instance, he is right when he says that the slogan “globalize the intifada” means different things for different people, explaining on a podcast that the phrase “is not a call for violence, but an expression of the desire for Palestinian ‘equality and human rights’” (Zohran Mamdani, The Economist). Well, yes, it is that for some people. It also means very bad things to many people, both extremists who see it as a call for attacks on Israel and others who see themselves as possible victims. On strictly pragmatic grounds, the slogan is counterproductive. Mamdani is rightly taken to task for stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge this. At least he could suggest a better slogan.

Mamdani is a gifted campaigner. Democrats must hope he can govern as well.

Last week Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) called for Mamdani to be subject to denaturalization proceedings and deported. Yesterday The Guardian reported a Department of Justice memo published June 11 that

calls on attorneys in the department to institute civil proceedings to revoke a person’s United States citizenship if an individual either “illegally procured” naturalization or procured naturalization by “concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.” (Edward Helmore, Trump’s justice department issues directive to strip naturalized Americans of citizenship for criminal offenses, The Guardian, June 30, 2025)

The article does not mention Mamdani. Nevertheless, an inquiring mind might ask if the DOJ is setting the stage to go after him on some Trumped-up charge.

• Lauren Egan, What Zohran Can Teach the Centrists, The Bulwark, June 25, 2025

• William Kristol, Andrew Egger, Jim Swift, A Wake-Up Call for the Dem Establishment, The Bulwark, June 25, 2025

• Philip Marcelo, Who is Zohran Mamdani? State lawmaker seeks to become NYC’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor, AP, June 25, 2025

• Nicole Markus, MAGA right attacks Zohran Mamdani’s religion following his win, Politico, June 25, 2025

• Amna Nawaz, What Zohran Mamdani’s primary win in New York means for Democrats nationwide, PBS News Hour, June 25, 2025

• David Smith, Democratic senator sounds alarm on party’s failures: ‘We don’t act as a team’, The Guardian, June 26, 2025

• Charlie Sykes, Is NYC About to Hand Trump a Massive Gift?, To the Contrary, June 23, 2025

• Nada Tawfik, Rachel Hagan, Who is Zohran Mamdani?, BBC News, June 25, 2025

• Zohran Mamdani, Trump’s “worst nightmare”, may really be a gift to him, The Economist, June 27, 2025

• Zohran for NYC (campaign website)

Other articles of interest around and about:

• “During the 12 days Israel was fighting Iran, more than 800 Palestinians were killed in Gaza—either shot as they desperately sought food in increasingly chaotic circumstances or in successive waves of Israeli strikes and shelling.” (Jason Burke, Israel closes the most direct route for aid to Palestinians in Gaza, The Guardian, June 26, 2025)

• Sam Levin, The alarming rise of US officers hiding behind masks: ‘A police state’, The Guardian, June 25, 2025

• Tom Nichols, A Military Ethics Professor Resigns in Protest, The Atlantic, June 25, 2025

• Andy Olsen, ICE Goes After Church Leaders and Christians Fleeing Persecution, Christianity Today, June 27, 2025

Keep the faith. Hold the line.
Stand with Ukraine.
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