{"id":5918,"date":"2026-09-08T12:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T12:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=5918"},"modified":"2026-09-08T12:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T12:09:08","slug":"mamdanis-9-11-pen-a-socialists-contempt-for-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=5918","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani\u2019s 9\/11 pen: A socialist\u2019s contempt for the dead"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

On Friday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed two executive orders commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Then he handed the ceremonial pen to his chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem — a man who spent years defending an al-Qaeda terrorist whose brother-in-law helped fly a plane into the Pentagon.<\/p>

Read more Talarico\u2019s cynical rebranding is here<\/a><\/p>\n

The symbolism was not subtle. It was a middle finger.<\/p>\n

Kassem represented Ahmed al-Darbi, a Saudi national who pleaded guilty before a U.S. military commission to conspiring in the 2002 bombing of the French oil tanker MV Limburg off Yemen — an al-Qaeda plot to disrupt global oil supplies in the aftermath of 9\/11. One civilian was killed. Al-Darbi\u2019s sister was married to Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the five hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77, the plane that struck the Pentagon and killed 184 people. Kassem began representing him in 2008 and served as his civilian defense counsel through sentencing.<\/p>\n

This is the man Mamdani chose as the city\u2019s top lawyer. And this is the man Mamdani chose to receive the pen that signed the city\u2019s official 9\/11 remembrance order.<\/p>\n

The video is damning. Kassem entered the Blue Room roughly fifteen minutes late, smirked as the pen was passed to him through NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and slipped out shortly after. The mayor\u2019s office insists Kassem\u2019s team drafted both orders — as if that excuses handing a 9\/11 memento to a man who spent a decade arguing on behalf of the enemy.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t. It makes it worse.<\/p>\n

This is not an isolated gaffe. It is the latest entry in a pattern of defiant, tone-deaf behavior that has defined Mamdani\u2019s brief tenure. Families of 9\/11 victims launched a petition in July asking him to stay away from the anniversary ceremonies, citing his associations with people who have defended terrorists, minimized the attacks, or suggested America \u201cdeserved\u201d them. The petition has now surpassed ninety-nine thousand signatures. Mamdani brushed it off, then doubled down by handing the pen to the very aide the families had flagged.<\/p>\n

He skipped the Israel Day parade. He ditched the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism on day one. He refused to condemn \u201cglobalize the intifada.\u201d He called pro-Israel lobbyists \u201cmonsters.\u201d He skipped the installation of the new Catholic Archbishop of New York. He tweeted about World Hijab Day. He has governed as though New York\u2019s Jewish, Catholic, and first-responder communities are obstacles rather than constituents.<\/p>

Read more Should we rename New Mexico?<\/a><\/p>\n

And now this.<\/p>\n

The pen is a symbol. It represents the authority of the office, the solemnity of the occasion, the city\u2019s commitment to never forget. Handing it to a lawyer who defended a man tied by blood to the hijackers is not a bureaucratic accident. It is a statement — that the grievances of the families, the memory of the dead, and the dignity of the office itself are secondary to Mamdani\u2019s ideological signaling.<\/p>\n

The American people should not accept this. Not from a mayor of the city that absorbed the worst of the attack. Not from a man who campaigned on \u201cdefund\u201d rhetoric and socialist redistribution and now treats the 9\/11 memorial as a prop for his base. Not from a politician who has made a career of testing how much contempt he can show before someone finally says enough.<\/p>\n

Enough.<\/p>\n

The families who lost husbands, wives, sons, and daughters on that day deserve a mayor who honors their grief rather than weaponizes it. The first responders who ran into the towers deserve a mayor who respects their sacrifice rather than handing its symbols to the lawyers of the enemy. And the American people deserve leaders who understand that some lines are not for crossing — that the memory of 9\/11 is not a bargaining chip, not a photo op, and not a vehicle for political theater.<\/p>\n

Mamdani crossed that line on Friday. The question is whether the rest of us will let him get away with it.<\/p>

Read more Personal Finance and the Road to Reparations<\/a><\/p>\n

Kyle McClay is a Huntington Beach entrepreneur and Orange County Republican.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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On Friday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed two executive orders commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Then he handed the ceremonial pen to his chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem — a man who spent years defending an al-Qaeda terrorist whose brother-in-law helped fly a plane into the Pentagon. Read more Talarico\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,195],"tags":[2306],"class_list":["post-5918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-zohran-mamdani","tag-related-topics-zohran-mamdani-9-11-terrorism"],"yoast_head":"\nMamdani\u2019s 9\/11 pen: A socialist\u2019s contempt for the dead - Interstate Logistics Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=5918\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mamdani\u2019s 9\/11 pen: A socialist\u2019s contempt for the dead - Interstate Logistics Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Friday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed two executive orders commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. 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