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Government Corruption

Urban progressives blast the unsafe cities that THEY created

2023-08-14

[NYPOST] The capital of the most powerful and prosperous country to ever grace Earth is an unpleasant — even unlivable — place to call home.
I recall driving up South Capital Street. The Capitol itself looked just magnificent, a beautiful piece of architecture. My destination was usually on the left, I Street SW, where I was in love with three absolutely lovely girls sharing an apartment in a high rise, splitting the three hundred dollar a month rent. On the right were the crime-ridden slums of Anacostia. The contrast was pretty striking. That was back in 1969.
Over the past decade, Washington, DC, has transformed from a beautiful, bustling and vibrant metropolis into a city that often feels like a rip-off of Batman’s Gotham.
I believe the mayor back then might have been Walter Washington.
Between 2013 and 2019, DC recorded between 104 and 166 homicides per year.
Back in '69 there were still places you wouldn't go without an armored vehicle.

In the three full years since, it’s recorded 198, 223 and 203 murders. This year, it’s on pace to bear witness to 256.
The old Washington Star used to have the habit of reporting crime and identifying perps by race, almost all of them black. That was kinda natural since residents of both D.C. and Hershey, Pennsylvania referred to their towns as "Chocolate Town, USA," though for entirely different reasons. D.C. was about 66 percent black.
All this has been accompanied by skyrocketing crime rates across the board.
It is forbidden to discuss factors in common among them.
The capital has already far eclipsed the staggering number of carjackings that took place there last year.
"Anarchy does not mean chaos," or so they say. It doesn't mean peace, quiet, and security either.
Worse yet, only 80 arrests have been made in connection with 2023’s 606 carjackings so far.
Somehow there aren't any DNA samples, fingerprints, eye witnesses or video of any other incidents.
Prospects are so bleak that Trayon White Sr., a Democratic city councilman who originally voted to lower the criminal penalties for a number of serious infractions — including carjacking and armed carjacking — is now calling for the National Guard’s intervention in the carnage.
Probably he won't call for repeal of his stupid bit of legislation.
Imagine telling someone in June 2020, amidst the gnashing of teeth that accompanied Sen. Tom Cotton’s call for the National Guard’s use then, that a little over three years later, Democrats would be pining for the same.

Calling for someone else to solve the problems they created? I was only in the Army for twenty years. I never had the authority to arrest anyone. I never shot an American citizen that I'm aware of.
“I am tired of burying our children,” White told the press this week.
Sadly, they're not tired of killing each other. They live in a subculture where "That boy's crazy" is exclaimed with admiration. Children grow to adulthood with no more accomplishment than being dangerous. I recall overhearing one conversation that started "When that boy walked into that police station with a .38 they really noticed him..." I believe the outcome was that the coppers shot back and blew him away, but they did notice him. Had he walked in with a degree in mechanical engineering who would have heard about it? Have you ever heard someone laugh and say “Dat's boy's accomplished!"
“We are too comfortable with the state of our city. We must take action to gain control and protect our residents.”
It's only been 54 years. The years included Marion "The bitch set me up" Barry, who was reelected when he got out of jail.
The violence and liberal backlash to it are hardly contained to the capital.
Did that start before or after they defunded the police and painted "Black Lives Matter" on Independence Avenue?
Oakland is on track to double the number of assaults and triple the number of carjackings cases in the city from 2019.
Oakland, for the geographically challenged, is the seedy sister city of San "Poopville" Francisco. Besides its dope addicts and homeless, San Francisco has the Mark Hopkins, Chinatown, Cable Cars, and Fisherman's Wharf. Oakland has... dope addicts and homeless.
Its NAACP chapter has minced no words in assigning blame for this sorry state of affairs. “Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life-threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals,” asserted the progressive group in a letter.
Who was it that wanted to defund the police in the first place? My guess would be crooks, but I'm an aged, retired fart, not a criminologist.
“People are moving out of Oakland in droves. They are afraid to venture out of their homes to go to work, shop, or dine.”
The usual solution to situations like that is to tax those remaining.

This spring, even Al Sharpton — he of “No justice, no peace!” fame — ripped his fellow progressives for their reticence to take the crime epidemic seriously. “Anybody that tells you they’re progressive but don’t care about dealing with violent crimes are not,” declared Sharpton. “You’re labeled progressive, but your action is regressive.”
Tawana Brawley agrees.
All this follows Eric Adams’ ascension to Gracie Mansion on the strength of his tough-on-crime image in 2021 and San Francisco’s ejection of progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin last year.
How'd that work out for ya?

To be fair, it turned out that Mayor Adams lied about being tough on crime. Who could have expected that?

As the Golden City’s bleeding-heart liberal mayor London Breed put it in a famous rant in late 2021, it’s time for “the reign of criminals who are destroying our city” to end.
Hope abode briefly in every heart but the bad guys'.
Both she and law enforcement, she said, needed to be “less tolerant of all the bullsh-t that has destroyed our city.”
So what happens to people who poop on the sidewalk?
Hear, hear.
Or are they exempt because that's not bullshit?
Breed’s fellow progressives may be late to notice the rampant lawlessness rendering America’s cities unrecognizable, but their change in heart should nonetheless be celebrated.
Yay. Hooray. Whoopdy doo. Does that mean you can't poop on the sidewalk anymore? Can't jack a car? Can't get high sitting on the sidewalk in front of one of the remaining nice places?
The hard truth is that because urban electorates will not so much as give Republican candidates a second look, Democrats will need to lay the groundwork for urban revival in most cases — at least over the short term.
I'm trying to get my jaw back up. It dropped when I read that.
City dwellers should be optimistic about progressives’ increasingly firm grip on reality regarding the state of their streets, then — but only cautiously so.

They should? They are? How're things in Baltimore? Chicago? Is Minneapolis still run by a student council? Is Philthadelphia rounding up gangsters and putting them into long term storage? Has San Francisco reopened Alcatraz?
As Mayor Adams has shown, there are limits to the power of tough talk.
Two words: Alvin Bragg.
Polling last month showed 70% of New Yorkers are still “very” or “somewhat” concerned that they may soon be the name behind another crime statistic.
Sounds like all that tough talk is working as expected.

Posted by:Fred

#5 Our cities or their cities?

Our culture or the foreign cultures being imposed on our culture.

The unsaid common denominator

In Europe’s big cities, migrants are already the majority.

Posted by: mossomo 2023-08-14 13:03

Posted by: NoMoreBS 2023-08-14 12:58

#3 I will say this. "Progressives" promoted this mess. "Conservatives" did nothing to stop it.

Posted by: M. Murcek 2023-08-14 12:09

#2 Eat the shit off your sidewalk and die.

Posted by: Rex Mundi 2023-08-14 12:06

#1 All our cities are infested will politicians and other grifters that act as blood sucking ticks. This extends into the suburbs but to a lesser extent because the ticks need an environment of failure that brings the lifeblood of state and national funding. The system will ultimately collapse when the nation defaults and begins to face hard choices. At that point all the ticks will waddle away to the Hampton.

Posted by: Super Hose 2023-08-14 06:55

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