AOC Suffers Double Blow As Socialism Takes Over Dem Party
New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and socialism have taken quite a few hits in the past week. Just before New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani arrived in Washington for his first meeting with President Donald Trump, the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan resolution condemning what it called the “horrors of socialism.”
“A yes vote on this resolution should be a relatively straightforward, easy decision. It simply states that Congress denounces socialism in all its forms and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America,” Republican Arkansas Rep. French Hill said.
The measure passed in a bipartisan vote of 285-98. Among the 86 Democrats who backed it were 14 members from New York and New Jersey, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who endorsed Mamdani only in the final moments of the mayoral race.
Other New Yorkers who supported the resolution included Bronx Rep. Ritchie Torres, Queens Reps. Greg Meeks and Grace Meng, and Long Island Reps. Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi.
Suozzi made a point of distancing himself from Mamdani throughout the campaign.
The resolution also received support from Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of Staten Island, whose mother fled Cuba in 1959 to escape what she described as “the very things that our new socialist mayor in New York City says he wants.”
Mamdani and AOC have sparked a “socialist movement” that could endanger Democrats going into the 2026 midterms.
“Two more candidates who are proud to align themselves with socialism are running for important House seats in solid blue districts in Democrat-controlled states. The secret sauce fueling this phenomenon is a widely perceived belief among the progressives who dominate the grassroots of the party that the Democratic establishment is corrupt to the core and must not just be reformed but thoroughly eradicated,” wrote Liberty Nation’s Joe Schaeffer.
“In my opinion, the real moment right now in the Democratic Party is, do we want to go back to the politics as usual?” Saikat Chakrabarti told NBC News in an interview for an article that ran Nov. 19, labeling his prospective main political opponent for the position he is eyeing as “part of that normal establishment politics.”
That enemy is none other than California state Senator Scott Wiener, who is one of the most extreme left-wing politicians in the Golden State.
But Wiener is also thought to be connected to the party’s mainstream, which could hurt him a lot more in the Bay Area than his controversial views on how transgender youth “rights” should take precedence over parental authority or how “sex workers” should be free to roam California street corners.
Chakrabarti and Wiener are both running for the Democratic nomination for the seat that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is leaving open.
Three or four years ago, during the Biden administration’s White House heyday, the political climate may have supported Wiener. But in 2025, the winds of change are obviously flowing in Chakrabarti’s direction.
Chakrabarti helped start the Justice Democrats, a dissident progressive group that became well-known when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) became a rising star on the left in November 2018.
One of these fellow travelers is Chi Osse, a member of the New York City Council who is running against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) in the primary.
Osse, who is 27 years old, left the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in 2022 because of a disagreement over policy. However, he rejoined the group this past summer.
“Power to the people! But is it really as easy as that? The Democratic establishment hasn’t run the show for decades by dumb luck. It still has potent cards to play. The mystique of incumbency and the assertion that capturing vital offices can be achieved only by supporting the pecking order already locked into place still carry pragmatic pull even among the most inflamed pitchfork-carrying progressives,” wrote Liberty Nation’s Joe Schaeffer.
Top DHS Special Agent And His Wife Found Dead
A Department of Homeland Security special agent and his wife were found dead in their New Jersey home in what appears to be a murder-suicide, prosecutors said.
Police in Sayreville responded to the couple’s home on Glynn Court around 8 p.m. July 3 and found Kelly Latauro, 46, dead inside the residence, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Her husband, 52-year-old Christopher Latauro, was discovered dead in the backyard.
Both appear to have been shot.
Authorities said Christopher is believed to be the shooter and the case is being investigated as a murder-suicide.
Police told residents to keep away from Glynn Court, from Deerfield Road to Scarlet Drive, briefly because of police activity.
The area was reopened about 40 minutes later, but police remained on scene.
According to NJ101.5, citing DHS records from 2019 and 2020, Christopher was a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security.
Authorities have not said what may have sparked the violence.
Kelly’s sister-in-law Robyn Perlman-Spencer confirmed her death in a Facebook post on July 7, remembering her in a heartbreaking tribute.
“As many of you may now know, my beautiful sister in law Kelly Iatauro was senselessly and suddenly taken from us on Friday. Kelly was a bright light- kind, thoughtful, hysterical, inappropriate, and just one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. She left a lasting impression on anyone that was lucky enough to know her,” Robyn wrote in part.
Sayreville police confirmed officers responded to the Glynn Court residence on July 3 and found both people dead of gunshot wounds.
The incident is being treated as a murder-suicide, and Christopher is suspected to be the shooter, the spokesperson said.
The Department of Homeland Security and Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment on the case.
What began as a heavy police response to a deadly scene left two people dead and the quiet Middlesex County neighborhood stunned.
Investigators are still trying to piece together what happened inside the home leading up to the gunfire.
Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin made headlines last week with an election-related announcement.
Mullin on Friday said officials who don’t cooperate with the administration’s election security efforts may be slapped with fines — and potentially prison time.
“If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections — and they chose not to — then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time,” Mullin said during a press conference at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Mullin also promised DHS would work to “speed up our security enhancements” for states.
He vowed to hold up federal election security grants until state officials took steps the administration demanded, including running their voter registration lists through a system that checks for non-citizen voters on the rolls.
Mullin made his comments after President Donald Trump’s primetime address on election security Thursday night, when he repeated already known concerns about the security of voting systems, alleged Chinese efforts to get into voter rolls, and aired old gripes about the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
In his remarks on Friday, the DHS secretary focused on DHS’s work with states to secure election systems and scrub voter registration rolls for fraud and concerns about noncitizen voting.
The Justice Department also sent letters this month threatening prosecution to election officials across the country if they don’t remove noncitizens from their voter rolls.
On Friday, Mullin seemed to suggest that the agency was able to estimate the numbers using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and said 23 states are already working with DHS to analyze voter rolls.
And he criticized the legal challenges that are hindering the administration’s efforts: Last month, a judge blocked the Trump administration from creating a database of information about Americans, including Social Security numbers and citizenship status.
