Tag Archives: Trump

Trump was right not to want a second strike

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The facts are still emerging through the fog of war (or is it the fog of law enforcement, or the fog of antiterrorism?). Sometimes people (including myself) draw conclusions on the basis of incomplete information, so let’s start with what’s really known.

Our military launched another missile attack on a drug-smuggling fast boat. The boat burst into flames and was dead in the water but did not immediately sink. On-scene surveillance showed that not all of the 11 crew members were killed. One or two men were seen moving in the water.

Unlike the footage of other fast boats being attacked by missiles, this footage has not been publicly released, but the facts in the preceding paragraph are undisputed.

A second missile strike was then ordered. It obliterated the wreckage of the boat and killed the two remaining survivors. That, too, is undisputed.

The mission was observed in real time by the Admiral in charge as well as his boss, the Secretary of War, in a room at the Pentagon. Both men saw the first missile strike.

The Secretary of War reports that he then left the room to attend another meeting. The second strike was then ordered by the Admiral who evidently believed he had authority from the Secretary of War.

Here’s where it gets foggy. One report says that the Secretary of War instructed the military in advance to “kill them all.” He denies saying that.

He did say afterward that he supports the Admiral’s ordering of the second strike, and went on to proclaim “the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.”

What’s the President say? When asked about the appropriateness of the second strike, he said:

“[The Secretary of War] said he didn’t do it, so I don’t have to make that decision.”

In the hurley-burley of the impromptu press conference aboard Air Force One, it’s not clear what, exactly, the Secretary told the President he “didn’t do.” It can’t be that he told the President they “didn’t do” a second strike, because they clearly did. Maybe what the Secretary said he “didn’t do” was to be the one who ordered it, since he was no longer in the room, or maybe what he told the President he “didn’t do” was to order the military to “kill them all.”

Apart from that ambiguity – something to be hashed out between the Secretary and the President – the most important words from the President about the second strike were the following:

“I wouldn’t have wanted that – a second strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine.”

Personally, I’ve defended the policy of bombing the drug smuggling fast boats. It’s a close call, legally, but the drug problem in America is very serious.

In the legal profession, there’s an expression: Hard facts make for hard law. America’s drug problem is a hard fact, and dealing with it requires some hard laws.

For that reason, I reluctantly support bombing fast boats loaded with lethal drugs in order to stop the drugs from entering America. I admit, it seems they could instead be simply followed and apprehended when they reach our shores, but Presidents get a lot of latitude in these matters of foreign affairs. I’ll give him that latitude in view of the seriousness of our drug problems.

But launching a second missile after the first missile wrecked and incinerated the boat, just for the purpose of killing the helpless survivors of the first missile, is a quite different thing.

Suppose the military had boarded the boat and found the two wounded survivors, rather than firing a second missile. Does anyone seriously contend they would be justified in executing them on the spot with a gun to their heads? If not, then why are they justified in executing them with a second missile launched from a different spot?

I think the President was right. The first strike was enough to stop the boat. There was no need to launch a second missile to kill the two wounded survivors in the water. Those killings were not necessary to the mission.

There’s a word for unnecessary killings. It’s on the tip of my tongue . . .

Like the President, I have little sympathy for drug runners, and if they die in the course of their criminality we shed no tears. But the President also knows that to murder them as they flail wounded in the water, well, that would make him worse than them. No thanks.

Bombing defenseless civilians clinging to a blown-up boat is murder

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Credible reports are emerging on the latest shoot-fish-in-a-barrel episode in the Caribbean, where the force of the U.S. military is brought to bear on “fast boat” drug runners. For the record, I’ve supported these operations in the past.

A whistle-blower connected to the mission revealed that in this particular episode the boat and crew weren’t immediately vaporized. The initial missile strike destroyed the boat and killed nine on board, but the boat didn’t immediately sink. Two people were still alive in the water, wounded. The American military evidently saw from the air that the two men were alive.

The threat posed by this boat to American shores and American people was never imminent but was certainly real. Drugs kill, and they’ve recently killed more people than we’ve lost in highway deaths and gun shootings combined.

But the threat posed by this particular fast boat had ended. The boat was going nowhere.

The military had several options at that point. They could have simply went away. The effect would be to let the wounded go down with the boat or die of their wounds.

They could have rescued the wounded men and put them on trial for drug smuggling. Sure, the men were probably armed, and might have fought their rescuers – an apparent surrender can be an ambush. But that’s always a risk when taking a person prisoner. It’s one of the many risks that servicemen and women sign up for.

The mission leaders chose a third option. They conducted a “second strike” missile attack where they obliterated the already-disabled boat and killed the two wounded men who had survived the first strike.

That second strike was in direct violation of written Pentagon policy prohibiting attacks on shipwrecks where combatants on board are unable to fight.

I’ve defended these shooting-fish-in-a-barrel missions on the grounds that the law affords the President wide latitude in matters of foreign affairs. President Obama ordered lethal drone attacks on terrorists on foreign soil – including some who were American citizens, and I supported that as well. 

A President does not need a Declaration of War from Congress to take action to defend American interests. The last time Congress issued a Declaration of War was 1942. (Both wars against Iraq were approved by Congressional “resolutions” that fell short of a Declaration of War.)

So, the absence of express Congressional approval for these actions does not especially bother me. What bothers me is the circumstances of this particular episode.

Put aside the fact that there’s been no judicial adjudication that these drug runners are, in fact, drug runners. Threats to American shores do not always lend themselves to due process determinations by old judges in walnut paneled courtrooms a thousand miles away.

And put aside the fact that these drug runners who are being bombed seldom get to America – they go to intermediate points such as Mexico or Caribbean islands where their drug cargo is transferred to some other drug runner.

And put side the fact that while these drug runners are certainly wrongdoers who deserve punishment, they are hardly drug kingpins like El Chapo with nine-figure bank accounts. They’re typically impoverished fishermen or peasants looking for a five-figure payday. 

And put aside the fact that none of these fast boats has put up a fight. The crew are undoubtedly armed, but their arms are in the form of handguns, not surface-to-air missiles to deal with an F-16.

Put all that aside. It’s a close call, but I’m still willing to support the President in blowing up the drug runner boats. That’s not because I dismiss the gravity of doing so; in fact, it’s a matter of great gravity. Rather, it’s because I weigh that against the gravity of America’s drug problem.

Constitutional scholars are mixed on the legality of these fast-boat bombings.

But whatever the legality of a fast-boat bombing, making a second strike to kill the helpless wounded survivors – flailing in the water as they cling to their sinking boat – crosses a line. It’s in violation of Pentagon written policy, it’s a violation of the rules of war, it’s barbaric, it’s murder.

The President was understandably not aware of the situation in real time – he has other things on his agenda – but he said afterward that he would not have ordered the second strike.

The second strike was evidently on the direct orders of either the Secretary of War or an admiral in charge of the mission. Both were reportedly watching the mission live. The Secretary of War says the second strike was with his authority but he was out of the room when the order was given.

Either the admiral or the Secretary of War, or both, should resign or, in the case of the admiral, be court martialed. This cannot stand. It’s wrong.

Sadly, Republicans will be slaughtered in the 2026 midterms

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As a three-time Trump voter with no regrets, I don’t like this message any more than most of you. So don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger.

The message is the Republicans in next fall’s midterm elections will lose the House, bigly, and probably the Senate.

If politics is indeed “war by other means,” expect the political war next fall to be bloody. Think Battle of the Little Bighorn. Think Stalingrad. Think Pickett’s Charge. Think the Battle of Midway. Think Waterloo. It will be one-sided.

Oh, I know the President has done some terrific things – at great personal risk to himself, by the way – even if they were sometimes done unartfully.

Stopping illegal immigration is near the top of the list. His crude methods were probably by design but might have been by fortuitous accident. Either way, he sent a message that transcended language barriers: The United States of America doesn’t welcome illegal immigrants anymore, and illegals who come anyway may find themselves on a one-way flight to West Africa. Due process? Mayyyybe . . . .

As a result, illegal immigration is at the lowest point in decades. The southern border in particular is more like, well, a nation’s border. All this has produced some human pain. Fixing big problems that politicians tolerated and sometimes encouraged often has that effect.

In the Middle East, the President let the Israelis beat and batter the barbarians of Hamas and then brokered a quasi-peace between the two. Even better, he prevented a nuclear Iran/Israel war by handing the Persians their biggest defeat since the Battle of Marathon two and a half millennia ago.

On tariffs, however, the President got out of his depth. His tariffs were defensible as an economic matter, maybe, but not as a legal matter. He will lose when the Supreme Court issues its decision next Spring – perhaps in a 9-0 decision – and the Court signaled as much in oral arguments a couple of weeks ago. At best, the decision will be 7-2 against the President.

The unravelling of those tariffs, which will have been in effect illegally for as much as a year, will be messy and embarrassing for the administration.

Intangibles are the most notable things on the score card for this administration. On the plus side, the President has made “woke” a four-letter word. That’s more than a stylistic change. Wokeness and all that it entails – abolition of merit, obsession with skin color and sexual preferences, the euphemizing of language, ubiquitous victimization – was highly destructive to America and the world.

On the minus side, the President has shown a tendency to say or tweet what he thinks in a way that often and needlessly offends. The most recent example was when a reporter persisted in asking yet another follow-up question during a press conference. Most reporters are loathsome creatures, but they paid to ask – nay, shout – questions in that manner.

The President could have ignored the reporter, or rebuked her with something like “let’s move on.”

Instead, he barked “Quiet, piggy!”

That may not bother you but it does bother millions of Americans, particularly women. Such people vote.

Right now, approval surveys suggest that many of them are sufficiently turned off by these sorts of crude insults that their vote will be against the GOP next fall. The outcome of the special elections around the country a few weeks ago supports that conclusion.

Forget about peace in the Middle East, the solving of the immigration debacle, and the mixed outcome on tariffs. Because the people will forget about those things.

What many of them will remember is that they dislike the President on a personal level. People vote against people they dislike. Right now, a large and growing number of people dislike the President.

That’s a fundamental flaw in representative democracy, but it’s an unavoidable aspect of human nature. We’ll see the results next fall.

Now, before you bark “Quiet, piggy!” at me, remember: I’m just the messenger and just doing my job. (And in case you think it’s relevant, I’m 6’ tall and weigh 160 pounds.)

Schumer failed, so his fascist comrades hung him from a lamp post

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The fascist who gave fascism its name came to an ugly end. Benito Mussolini was impaled on a meat hook and hung upside-down from a lamppost. Fascists don’t tolerate failure.

Democrat leader Charles Schumer is someone I don’t like, and I felt a certain schadenfreude when his Democrat “friends” blamed him for their caving on what has come to be called the “Schumer Shutdown” or, more accurately, the “Schumer Sh*tshow.”

But there’s something disquieting about the barrage of criticism from the left.

The gist of the criticism is that Schumer failed to keep all the Democrat Senators “in line.” In other words, he failed to coerce every Democrat to vote the way he told them to, despite his best efforts at coercion. At coercion, he failed.

Criticizing Schumer for failing at coercion says a lot about the criticizers. It says that they think other Democrats are Schumer’s subordinates, and he is supposed to be able to control their votes.

That sounds vaguely dictatorial to me.

It would come as news to the people of New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Illinois who elected these particular Democrats that the Senators they elected are required to vote not their conscience, and vote not for the interests of the people who elected them, but vote the way an old guy in New York tells them to.

It seems the left wing of the Democrat Party believes that the only acceptable vote for the rank and file is a vote for insanity and radicalism. When the Democrat leader tells his “subordinates” to vote for insanity and radicalism, then, by golly, that’s what they’re required to do, their conscience and their constituents be damned.

The predicament of the Democrat leader is even more precarious. It’s not enough for him to vote insanely and radically. He’s also supposed to succeed in coercing every other Dem into voting insanely and radically. Any failures in his coercion earn him a meat hook and a hanging.

Regardless of what it says on paper, regardless of Senate rules, regardless of the will of the people, the leftists in the Democrat Party have a tyrannical and bloodthirsty grip on the party.

Dems denuded without even a fig leaf

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We went to bed on Sunday and there was vague talk of a shutdown workaround. We wake up on Monday, and the Democrats have caved.

Analogies, anyone? If this were a boxing match, the Democrats didn’t come out of their corner for the 8th round. If it were a softball game, the ten-run rule got applied. If it were a war, they flew the white flag and laid down their arms. If it were wrestling, they tapped out.

If it were poker, they folded, though the time to fold ‘em was a month ago. They didn’t know when to walk away, and so now they have to run.

Feel free to add your own analogies. That’s what the comment section is for!

This all transpired because Democrats are the minority party in Congress at the moment. They consequently got outvoted on the tax bill last winter. Getting outvoted often happens to the minority party.

The Democrats’ solution to being outvoted as the minority party was to demand to be treated like the majority party, else they would shut down the government. They demanded a re-do of the tax bill, specifically the part that let expire the Obamacare insurance subsidies enacted as a temporary measure during COVID.

The Republicans’ reaction was, “Huh? Do you think that Democrats get to act like the majority party when they are, and also get to act like the majority party when they aren’t?”

It wasn’t hard for the Republicans to call that bluff.

After the biblical 40 days and 40 nights, give or take, and over a dozen votes blocked by the Democrats, eight of the 43 Democrat Senators finally broke ranks Sunday evening and voted to re-open the government.

The stock market cheered. Food stamp recipients rejoiced. Federal workers felt relieved. Holiday travelers were glad.

Democrats fumed.

Now there’s a civil war in the Democratic party. By the media reports, it sounds like the biggest one since Democrats quit America a century and a half ago to continue holding in chains some of the men God created equal.

In the resolution to both civil wars, the Democrats got hardly anything in the bargain.

At least this time, Atlanta didn’t get torched.

But Chuck Schumer did. Imagine Schumer stark naked with only a fig leaf, surrounded by ravenous dog-like Democrats looking for someone to blame. Now take away the fig leaf and let loose the dogs.

That’s the Democrat Party right now. It ain’t pretty.

Democrats will end the filibuster when they’re back in power, so Republicans should end it now

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U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY)

The Senate filibuster is an odd rule. It says 60 votes out of the 100 Senators are necessary to end debate on a piece of proposed legislation.

Absent those 60 votes, the legislation never gets put to a vote. The effect is that it takes not just a majority of the Senate – 51 votes out of 100 – to pass legislation. It takes a supra-majority of 60.

The filibuster rule is not in the Constitution. In fact, it’s not even in a statute. It’s simply a rule dreamed up by the Senate. In various forms, it goes back to the 19th century, and has been tweaked many times since then.

The original idea behind the filibuster was this: If Senators want to keep debating some proposed legislation, then – politicians being politicians – they should. Talk is not just cheap, but good, and so more talk is better.

But – politicians being politicians again – they soon abused their right to talk. Filibusters became not a way to keep talking about legislation, but a way to kill it. Legislation supported by 59 Senators, which typically meant Senators from both parties, could be killed by just 41 senators opposing it.

The result has been the occasional paralysis of the Senate. Controversial legislation cannot get passed unless it falls within one of the limited exceptions to the filibuster rule.

This outcome frustrated Democrats a few years ago, because it enabled the Republicans to stop the confirmation of a few of the controversial federal judges nominated by Barack Obama. Republicans didn’t stop all confirmations, mind you, but only the ones they especially disliked. Obama still got  the great majority of his judges confirmed, and we still see them in action.

This filibustering of judicial nominations did not start with the Republicans, of course. Democrats were at least as adept at the practice and, arguably, were the ones to start the practice.  

For example, a brilliant and highly qualified nominee by George W. Bush name Miguel Estrada was filibuster by the Democrats. And then again. And again, and again. And again, and again. and again.  

Seven times, the Democrats filibustered Miguel Estrada.

When the Republicans repaid the filibustering favor, it didn’t sit well with the Democrats. The Democrat Senate leader was a sleazy old battle ax named Harry Reid who served in, or at least enjoyed, the Senate for 30 years and mysteriously amassed a fortune doing so. He threatened to, and did, abolish the filibuster for ordinary judicial nominations. From that time forward, it took only 51 Senators to break a filibuster on ordinary judicial nominations.

You might reasonably ask how he got the 60 votes to abolish the filibuster rule requiring 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

Here’s where it gets curious. It takes 60 Senators to overcome a filibuster on proposed legislation, but it takes only 51 to change the Senate rules allowing for filibusters. And so, with a simple majority, Senator Reid jammed through his change to the rule requiring a supra-majority to confirm a judicial nominee, to require only a simple majority.

The Republicans warned Senator Reid and his Democrat colleagues that they would regret abolishing the filibuster. They warned that someday the tables would be turned, and it would be the Republicans who would take advantage of the power to confirm judicial nominations with a bare majority of 51 Senators, rather than the traditional 60 Senators.

That’s what happened, in spades. Senator Reid abolished the filibuster for judicial nominations with the exception of Supreme Court nominations. In 2017, the Republicans saw his bid and raised him.

President Trump had the opportunity to nominate three Supreme Court Justices in his first term to replace conservative and liberal Justices who died in office, and a moderate Justice who retired.

Unsurprisingly, President Trump nominated three conservatives. Unsurprisingly, the Democrats went ballistic and promised to filibuster. Unsurprisingly, the Republicans took the natural step of abolishing the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations, just as the Democrats had for lower court nominations. Unsurprisingly, all three were confirmed by Republican Senate majorities (even though the Democrats shamelessly defamed Justice Kavanaugh).

Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court is now 6-3 conservative, and will remain conservative for the foreseeable future.

This 6-3 conservative Supreme Court has been a key component to President Trump’s power. On political cases, the outcome is generally (not always) five or six conservatives to four or three liberals.

Which brings us to the government “shutdown.” Of course, the government is not shut down, but the word “shutdown” generates clicks for click-baiting whores that comprise today’s media, and so that’s the term they use – together with the suggestion that it’s all the fault of the Republicans because they refuse to un-do the tax bill that was passed last spring.

But that’s just an excuse. The real reason for the “shutdown” is that the Democrat leader, Now York’s Charles Schumer, is panicking that a loony Democrat woman with initials for a name will challenge him in a primary and defeat his ambition to stay in the Senate well into his 80s. He’s in need of loony lib cred in a state that prizes such stuff. (See, e.g. Zohran Mamdani.)

And so, the Democrats have filibustered the legislation to keep the government open a dozen times.

In ordinary times, the rank-and-file Democrats would go along with Schumer’s selfish shutdown scheme, for about as long as they can say those four words fast.

But in today’s political climate, even rank-and-file Democrats oppose practically everything Trump proposes, just because it’s Trump who proposes it. When the leftist base of the Democrats demand brave “resistance” to Trump, the rest of the Democrats willing grovel in compliance to show their bravery.

The Republicans could thwart the Democrats and end the shutdown in hours by taking a simple majority vote, a la Harry Reid, to suspend the filibuster. They wouldn’t even have to abolish it. They could do a one-time suspension of it. With 53 of the 100 Senators being Republican, that one-time suspension should pass.

By the way, if the Republicans were to abolish the filibuster for everything, not just as a one-time exercise, then they could run roughshod over the Democrats for at least the next year until the 2026 mid-term elections.

I like the idea of running roughshod over Democrats who are “bravely” groveling to their crazy leftist base.

Ah, you say, but then the Democrats would turn the tables against the Republicans next time the Democrats have a majority of the Senate.

Yes, they will.

But they will do that whether the Republicans suspend the filibuster now or not. These are Democrats, by golly. Do you expect them to abide by the filibuster later just because the Republicans do now? Do you expect them to play fair?

In California – and probably your state – illegals easily get driver’s licenses and are automatically registered to vote

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There’s an odd little side show that caught my attention in the vaudeville act of “Dr.” Ian Roberts, the illegal immigrant from Guyana whom the Des Moines School District hired, heroized, and paid $300,000/year. (None of those particular things caught my attention in themselves, since they’re all par for the illegal immigrant course, these days.)

What caught my attention is that he’s registered to vote in Maryland, which was one of his waypoints on his grand and illegal tour through America. How, I wondered, did he manage to register to vote in Maryland?

It’s easy. In fact, it’s automatic.

Like about 18 other states, Maryland allows illegals to get driver’s licenses. Yes, it’s illegal for an illegal to be in America but, no, it’s not illegal in those states for them to get a driver’s license to drive around. Their presence is illegal, but their driving is not.

Okay, fair enough. On second thought, that’s not fair at all to the rest of us who wind up dodging illegals whose driving “skills” are the product of the roads and customs of such places as Guadalajara while we see our insurance premiums skyrocket.

But, anyway, there’s more.

In about 24 states, when the state issues a driver’s license, it automatically registers the person to vote – completely and willfully ignorant of whether the person is an American citizen.

Re-read that last paragraph. Yes, you got it right.

This scheme has a name. (The Democrats are great at branding things. See, e.g., “Affordable Housing,” “Reproductive Rights,” and “Me Too.”) They call this one “Automatic Voter Registration” or “AVR.” Democrats boast that AVR makes it easier to vote.

About that, they’re right.

Back to the erstwhile “Dr.” Ian Roberts. He got a driver’s license in Maryland while he happened to be on-the-lam there. Under their AVR system, Maryland automatically registered him to vote, as other states with AVR would have done.

Voila! He was in the country illegally, but had a valid driver’s license to drive around and was duly registered to vote.

Nothing odd or extraordinary took place. What happened undoubtedly happens thousands of times every day. It’s supposed to happen that way. There was no breakdown in the system. His voting registration was not a mistake.

The mistake was a bigger one. The mistake was a failure of American government. One political party has hijacked the levers, arms and dials of American government to produce deliberate and systematic voting fraud.

Democrats: “Nobody move, or we’ll shoot ourselves!”

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Democrats are willing to shut down the government if Republicans refuse to re-negotiate part of the tax bill passed in July. They say the main thing they want re-negotiated are government subsidies for Obamacare.

The Democrats have some leverage here because, while it took only a Senate majority to pass the tax bill, and the Republicans hold that majority, it takes a supra-majority to pass a bill to keep the government from shutting down. A supra-majority cannot be achieved without a handful of Democrats.

There are several principled objections to this strategy by the Democrats, which are worth mentioning before I get to the main point.

First, this isn’t the way legislation is supposed to get done. Once a bill is passed, the losing side is not supposed to get another bite at their losing apple by threatening to shut down the government many months later.

Second, shutting down the government is a little like hostage-taking. The threat is of a different kind and degree from the matter in dispute.

Third, this is stupidly hypocritical by the Democrats. The party of Big Government says that if they don’t get their way, they’ll . . . shut down Big Government.

It reminds me of Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles, when he pointed a gun at his head and warned his pursuers, “Hold it! Next man makes a move, the n***** gets it!” (Note that in what passes for today’s “culture” you can get all manner of porn and snuff films with a few clicks on the internet, but finding that clip takes some effort.)

Fourth, the Republicans are prepared to turn the tables. Trump says that if the government gets shut down, he’ll have no choice but to fire government workers. There’s some logic to that. It’s not fair to employ workers you can’t pay.  

Democrats have shown a talent for political malpractice lately, but this one looks like a real boner. The Democrats can be stupid, but usually not this stupid. So why are they doing it?

The conventional wisdom is that they are captive to their “base,” the far-left kooks. That’s true, but it leaves the question, why are they captive to kooks?

The answer to that question is the same as the answer to the question “Why do you rob banks?” asked of serial bank robber Willie Sutton. He replied, “Because that’s where the money is.”

Kooks don’t normally have money, but these particular far-left ones do. Billions are funneled to them from unabashed radicals like George Soros and billions more from purportedly philanthropic foundations and leftist non-governmental organizations like Greenpeace, Common Cause and Black Lives Matter that are only slightly less radical. (Imagine entrepreneurs like John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford and John D. MacArthur turning in their graves at the sight of how their money is spent today.) The kooks receiving those billions, in turn, are major campaign donors to Democrats.

These monied far-left interests are not really driven by details like Obamacare subsidies. That’s just an excuse. If the Republicans compromised on that, there will be another demand and another. What really drives them is a desire to sow chaos and confusion in American society, culture and government. Shutting down the government, they believe, serves that end. They seek a revolution, by whatever means necessary but preferably through a societal breakdown – by violence.

If the Democrats want to shut down the government in order sow a little chaos and confusion, fine. They’ll lose in the end, and it won’t take long. Let’s not take the bait for a violent confrontation.

Let Chicago destroy itself

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President Trump’s efforts to bring down crime have been successful in Washington, D.C. The rate of murder and other violent crimes is down substantially, and the rate of car-jackings is down dramatically.

Even the Democrat mayor of the city admitted that the crime rate has dropped. Oddly, however, she mumbles in the next breath that the program is “not working,” apparently to mollify national stage Democrats to whom she answers.

Such as Democrat Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer. He was asked at the outset whether the initial 30-day period for the effort could be extended. His response was “f*** no!” It will be interesting to see him now choose between enabling murders and climbing down from his vulgar perch. I’m guessing he’ll choose the side of murder, and stay on his vulgar perch.

So, if it worked in D.C., why stop now? We can curtail crime and simultaneously embarrass Democrats around the country. We should next send the troops to Chicago, right? And then Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta, St. Louis and Portland, right?

I don’t think so. My reasons are legal, philosophical and political.

Legally, D.C. is a special case. It’s under the direct jurisdiction of the federal government (notwithstanding the limited “home rule” that Congress legislated some years ago). One federal judge has already ruled that the deployment of troops to Los Angeles to quell the illegal immigration protests was illegal. I don’t have much regard for that particular judge – the bowtie-wearing, San Francisco-residing, 83-year-old little brother of retired liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer – but it is conceivable that his big brother’s former Court will uphold his ruling.

Now the more important reasons – the moral and philosophical ones.

D.C. is the workplace and often the home of over a hundred thousand federal employees who have little choice about their workplace venue.

It’s also the face of America to millions of foreign visitors who reasonably assume that it reflects American values, just as we would assume that Paris reflects French values, London reflects English values, and Berlin reflects German values. (Each of those cities has a lower crime rate than D.C., especially in the category of violent crime.) How America presents itself to the world through its capital city is rightly a national and federal concern. How Chicago presents itself to the world is less so.

Here’s the most important point. The crime in Chicago and other major cities is largely due to ongoing choices they make in law enforcement. Recall that only five years ago, many residents of American cities were calling for the “defunding” – i.e., abolition – of city police forces. Even now, police forces are short-handed because the Democrats ruling these cities are hostile to law enforcement. They hate the cops more than they hate the criminals.

When they’re not short-changing the cops, they’re hand-tying them. Many crimes are simply not investigated or prosecuted. For example, shop-lifting has effectively been de-criminalized. If you want to get fired from your job at a local store, call the cops on a shoplifter or, worse, chase after one.

Other crimes have also been effectively de-criminalized on the grounds that too many racial minorities were being arrested for committing them.

People who commit crimes are criminals, but they aren’t stupid. They know what they can get away with, and so that’s what they do.

In short, big-city crime is a big-city choice. Specifically, it’s a choice by big city Democrats. They could decide tomorrow not to tolerate crime. So far, with the exception of the D.C. mayor who has had an epiphany on the subject, they have not decided that. We cannot coerce everyone into epiphanies.  

Finally, there’s a legitimate issue about using federal troops for routine law enforcement. From the German Gestapo of a century ago to the Mexican Federales of today, federal law enforcement in local matters has a sordid history. 

To be sure, the crime in American large cities inflicts real harm on the residents who, by and large, are not criminals of any kind. They sometimes get attacked, shot or killed and they often get their property stolen or vandalized. Even in the absence of tangible harm, they live insecure, semi-terrified lives.

But they keep electing those soft-on-crime Democrats. They are entitled to, but I say let these residents see and suffer the consequences of their choices – for years and years, if that’s what it takes.

Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago is widely seen outside of Chicago as the worst mayor in America. Even within Chicago, which is an overwhelmingly Democrat city, his approval rating this summer is down to the mid-20s. Maybe that means the Democrat residents of Chicago will throw the bum out.

But don’t count on it. Especially if he can make political hay by distracting the Democrat residents from his incompetence with a show of “standing up to” the Orange Man that they hate more than the criminals and even more than the cops.

You may ask, “What about the residents of Chicago who do want to throw the bum out? Who do want effective law enforcement? Who do want to reclaim their city from filth and crime? Who do vote with their minds and not with their tribe?”

My answer is, they have an alternative. Unlike federal employees locked into workplaces in D.C., the residents of Chicago who vote with their minds but get outvoted every time can vote with their feet.

My advice to them is to get the hell out of the failing cities. Let the failing cities burn and rot. Maybe then, and probably only then, the residents will insist on effective governance. If they don’t even then, well, at least they’ve self-concentrated in places we can watch and, if necessary, avoid or isolate.

And who knows? Their proclivity toward killing one another might prove to be an unfitness in the Darwinian sense.

Yes, my advice to sane people in insane places is to move to another place. Move to Texas, move to Florida, move to Idaho. Move to Galt’s Gulch.

The policies of the left are outrageous – by design

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George Frederic Watts – Chaos

It’s now a truism that the policies of the left are widely viewed as outrageous – at least the cultural ones such as allowing male voyeurs and exhibitionists into girls’ bathrooms, discriminating to benefit favored races and sexual orientations, grabbing the guns held by hundreds of millions of law-abiding Americans while simultaneously coddling criminals who will never give up theirs, and abolishing the nation’s borders.

Such issues have earned a name – the “80/20 issues” – because something near 80% of Americans oppose the left on such issues.

That 80% figure would probably be even higher if not for some Democrats whose hearts and minds are on the 80% side but whose instinctive tribalism boxes them into the 20% side just because they (correctly) see the 20% side as part of the formal Democratic Party platform.

Yet, the left seems unable to effectuate a course correction on those outrageous policies disfavored by 80% of the people.

One result is that the Democrats lose elections. Who cares about the nuances of tariffs, an issue on which reasonable persons disagree, when they’re putting boys in drag into your daughter’s bathroom at school, an issue on which reasonable persons do not?

My reaction to the Democrats’ truculence is one word: Good. I hope they stay bound to the losing side of those issues. Because I want them to keep losing elections.

But I’m left wondering: Why? Why is the left so bound to the losing side of issues that cost them elections?

I have a theory.

Recognize that the left is not like you and me. At the core, they aren’t trying to solve problems. Instead, they’re trying to provoke ordinary people. What better way to provoke ordinary people than to put messed-up teenage boys into the bathrooms of those people’s daughters?

But that, in turn, leaves a question: Why does the left want to provoke ordinary people?

Here’s where it gets sinister. They hate America. They really do, you know. Polls consistently show that the hard left feels genuine hate for America. Even mere Democrats – as opposed to hard leftists – often feel something less than love for the nation.

Thus, the left is fundamentally different than the right. On the right, neo-Nazis are loathsome and even mere right-wingers are sometimes not very appealing, but I’ve noticed that most of them do not hate America as a nation and an institution and a culture and a people.

The left’s hatred of America is the reason they seek to provoke Americans. Hatred is the mother of provocation and, ultimately, violence.

Did Hitler really want to own Russia? I doubt it. But he certainly hated Russians. He never did succeed in owning Russia – he never even reached Moscow – but his hatred of Russians succeeded in killing 20 million of them.

Do the leftists really want self-proclaimed teenage transexual peeping Toms in the girls’ bathrooms? I doubt it, but what a great way to express the hatred in their dark hearts for our nation, our culture and our people.

And in their dark minds, they hope that maybe the chaos they wreak by ritually torching age-old cultural norms will destroy that culture.

Imagine how things would have been different for Hitler if, prior to his invasion of Russia, he had demoralized them with boys in the bathrooms of Russian girls, if he had grabbed the guns of the Russian civilians, if he had abolished the Russian border, if he had fueled race wars within Russia.

The hateful left and their naive Democrat enablers are playing the long game of history, not the short game of the next election. In taking the 20% side of these issues – the side of confusion and chaos – the left will certainly lose many battles for elections, but they could well win the war against our civilization.