by Kent Scheidegger · Oct 21, 2020 10:59 am
Tessa McLean reports in the SF Chronicle:
Another Walgreens is permanently shutting down in San Francisco.
The drugstore at 790 Van Ness Ave. had been dealing with rampant shoplifting, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, amounting to up to $1,000 in lost merchandise every day. Thefts were often brazen and carried out in broad daylight. Continue reading . . .
by Michael Rushford · Oct 12, 2020 11:55 am
In honor of “Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage,” rioters in Portland tore down statues of Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln Sunday night. The Associated Press reports that protest organizers targeted the statues on the eve of Columbus Day because of their belief that both Lincoln and Roosevelt were hostile to Native Americans. It is also likely that the two presidents were targeted because no statues of Christopher Columbus were available. The rioters then smashed windows at the Oregon Historical Society, a hotbed of white privilege, then marched on the Portland State University Public Safety Office. No arrests were reported. Not to be outdone, sports fans in Los Angeles celebrated the Lakers capture of the NBA title Sunday night by setting fires, destroying property and attacking police.
by Bill Otis · Sep 16, 2020 5:09 pm
A pro-criminal “reform” agenda cannot win public support if presented honestly. That’s the reason its advocates more or less continuously lie. Their marquee lie (or perhaps I should be charitable and call it merely an article of voodoo-like faith), is that the problem is the behavior of the system rather than the behavior of the criminal. Their second most important lie (and this is nobody’s mere article of faith) is that the sober measures we implemented in the Eighties and Nineties — more police, more proactive policing, more incarceration and more law-driven sentencing — had little or nothing to do with the enormous drop in crime that began after they took hold. The audacity and belligerence of this lie has been something to behold.
As Mike reminds us, the Left is now engaged in rampant lying about the scope and nature of the riots they pretend not to want. But Mike is not the only one to notice; Bill Barr has noticed, too.
by Bill Otis · Sep 1, 2020 12:39 pm
Bret Stephens is an especially insightful writer for, of all things, the New York Times. His column yesterday asks some questions the country very much needs to ponder:
Can the left be honest that the tragedies unfolding today in American cities are as much the story of insufficient policing as they are of abusive policing? Does it get that “law and order” is a precondition to civil liberty, not an impediment to it? Is it willing to say that the American founders who bequeathed us the institutions of liberal democracy should be honored, not despised? And does Joe Biden have the nerve to stand up to the extremes in his own party, or does he just mean to appease them?
His piece makes other painful points as well.
by Bill Otis · Aug 11, 2020 12:44 pm
You would think that question answers itself, but the Left’s dismissive belligerence in lying about the causes of rioting is so persistent that, in some quarters, it has taken hold. Thus, it was only last week that Portland’s mayor was telling us that it was the introduction of federal agents (to protect federal property like courthouses), not the hoodlums who’ve spent weeks bringing violence and disorder to his city, that were the real cause of Portland’s continuing problems.
As the Wall Street Journal explains today, this was all nothing more than the usual aggressive tripe.
by Bill Otis · Aug 10, 2020 12:19 pm
Left wing leadership in Chicago and Portland got more of what they’ve spent years asking for when violent mobs of hoodlums noticed this weekend that they have the green light for party time. That is, they took advantage of the Conventional Progressive Wisdom that the police are the ones who need to be contained (by being stripped of funding, weapons, and legal protection, among all the other things we’ve heard so much about lately), while they — the thugs — are to be regarded as the newly entitled victims of Amerika’s callousness and cruelty.
As you might imagine, what happened then wasn’t pretty.
by Bill Otis · Aug 3, 2020 4:10 pm
The Chief of Police in Seattle, a lady named Carmen Best, is a longtime member of the force. I know very little about her. I do know that she broadly shares the liberal perspectives of the leadership of that city, as one would expect of a chief of police.
Still, she has shown a spine, and an understanding that vandalism, rioting and arson are not acceptable. This has not made everyone happy. So they did what any “peaceful protesters” would do. They showed up in force at her house.
Cross the mob and expect a visit. If there’s a difference between this and how La Cosa Nostra operates, it’s too subtle for me.
by Kent Scheidegger · Jul 29, 2020 3:18 pm
40 U.S.C. §1315(a):
To the extent provided for by transfers made pursuant to the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the Secretary of Homeland Security … shall protect the buildings, grounds, and property that are owned, occupied, or secured by the Federal Government … and the persons on the property.
“Shall,” for those unclear on the concept, means this is a duty.
by Bill Otis · Jul 26, 2020 9:40 pm
The new name is “mostly peaceful.” That’s the phrase the media use to describe the five or ten minutes Antifa and other thug groups take to organize themselves before they begin the evening’s “entertainment” of arson, rock throwing and assault in one major city after the next. But sometimes the, uh, peacefulness “intensifies.”
by Katherine.Stiplosek · Jul 23, 2020 3:27 pm
On Wednesday July 22 President Trump announced that the Justice Department would be sending hundreds of additional federal agents into major cities, in an attempt to reduce the number the shootings and violence that has escalated in recent in weeks, and compensate for weak local governments.
“We will never defund the police. We will hire more great police. We want to make law enforcement stronger, not weaker. What cities are doing is insanity.” Continue reading . . .
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