“We must do more than mourn — we must act,” President Joe Biden said on Sunday’s shoot-out in downtown Sacramento that killed six. Biden called on Congress to ban ghost guns, pass “universal” background checks, ban assault weapons, and repeated the lie that gun manufacturers have special immunity from liability.
California already has “universal” background checks. It has “red flag” laws and domestic-violence gun confiscation (often, without any real due process). It has an assault-weapon and magazine ban, deputizing citizens to enforce them. California has safe-storage laws and a ghost-gun ban. The state has a firearm-sales record and the strictest gun-dealer regulation in the nation. It empowers local authorities to further regulate firearms but not to deregulate. It has raised the allowable age even to buy a shotgun or rifle from 18 to 21. In most municipalities, concealed-carry permits are almost impossible to get.
California is home to 111 laws — not counting the thousands passed in cities and counties — that restrict “the manner and space in which firearms can be used,” according to Boston University School of Public Health. “California has the strongest gun laws in the United States and has been a trailblazer for gun safety for the past 30 years,” says Giffords Law Center. The only thing California hasn’t done is outright ban semi-automatic weapons, which is where all these incremental restrictions are meant to lead.
In 2020, then-presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg was asked how he could continue to demand gun control while being protected by private guards equipped with the same firearms and magazines that he wanted to ban others from owning. “Does your life matter more than mine or my family’s or these people’s?” Bloomberg’s response, in essence, was that he was not an ordinary person. He was a celebrity and billionaire who received more threats than most people: “That just happens when you are the mayor of New York City or you are very wealthy.”
At the same time, another big-city Democrat politician known for pushing gun control on the lower orders was being shielded by a small army of police officers, presumably at the taxpayers’ expense. The Chicago Sun-Times recently disclosed that a special police security detail, Unit 544, was created two years ago to protect Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, her home and office, and to “oversee her personal bodyguard detail.” The special unit consists of approximately 71 officers, in addition to the mayor’s existing “separate personal bodyguard detail” of 20 officers.
Both cities – ex-Mayor Bloomberg’s New York City and Lightfoot’s Chicago – are experiencing horrific surges in violent crime. The most recent “CompStat” report from the NYPD indicates rapes, robberies, felony assaults, burglaries, grand larceny, and auto thefts have all increased significantly as compared to the same time last year, and the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) own “CompStat” contains the same dismal message.
While privileged politicians float above this wave of criminality, untroubled by threats to person or property, less exalted individuals are forced to rely on whatever police resources may be available or become their own version of Unit 544.
Last week in Chicago, for instance, a 70-year-old Uber driver, threatened by robbers who then carjacked his vehicle, had to wait 75 minutes before police could respond. Police assigned to serve the area had been drastically reduced to 261 officers, the “lowest monthly staffing level for the district since at least August 2017,” so no one was available to take the assignment until the next shift began. The problem isn’t restricted to that police district: overall, more than 660 CPD officers retired in 2021, almost double the number of retirees in 2018, and recruiting of new officers dropped during the pandemic. Carjacking reports, meanwhile, have set a new monthly record as of February 2022, up 390% from February 2019.
The impact on public safety is what makes Lightfoot’s private defense force of almost 100 officers all the more outrageous. In 2020, residents had already complained that patrol officers in areas close to Lightfoot’s home were redeployed to the mayor’s residence. It’s at odds with the mayor’s oft-used theme of “all hands on deck” to address public safety using a “coordinated and collective effort,” if scores of the deckhands are used for what amounts to private security work. And Lightfoot herself can’t pretend that police resources aren’t affected, because the creation of Unit 544 coincided with her proposal to cut the CPD budget by $80 million as part of addressing a pandemic–related citywide budget shortfall.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Lightfoot asserts her special police detail became necessary because in 2020, there was “a significant amount of protests all over the city, and some of them targeted [] my house.” (News reports from 2020 indicate that the protests included, ironically, calls to remove police from schools, for reforms to the CPD, and to defund the police.) A 2020 news report quotes Lightfoot defending, as well, the closing off of residential streets around her home to activists, because of threats to her safety. “[T]he situation can’t be compared to protests at former mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home given the pandemic… This is a different time – like no other.”
John Catanzara, president of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police, observes that “[w]hile murders are soaring, while districts are barebones for manpower, all that matters [to Lightfoot] is protecting her castle.”
Of course, it is completely reasonable for Lightfoot to take lawful measures to protect herself and her family, the same as anyone else, but her situation is arguably no more dire nor compelling than the crisis of crime faced by every other Chicago resident today.
The problem is that the mayor, and others like her, are the same anti-gun advocates who see no contradiction between demanding ever more pointless restrictions on the ability of constituents to legally access firearms for self-defense, and ensuring their own safety with assigned police bodyguards and armed security. Ordinary citizens don’t need guns because the police will protect them – even if crime climbs to levels not seen in decades and there’s upward of an hour’s wait on a 911 call.
These people would have you believe that this isn’t gun control elitism in action – it’s just that they aren’t like you and me. After all, if you don’t have bread you can always eat cake.
Democrats love mass shootings. It’s their best chance at taking away our guns. We saw it happen in Australia back in 1996 when some wackjob killed 35 people and Australians HANDED OVER THEIR firearms — 700,000 or so to be exact, because, you know, safety, I guess…?
As you have probably heard, a mass shooting in Sacramento, Calif., left six people dead and 15 more wounded. The story isn’t getting a ton of traction because the shooter is most likely not Muslim or white. The media loves when the shooter is a Muslim because terror attacks keep people focused on the news. Lefty media will drag out a mass shooting when the shooter is white because it backs up the lie that most mass shooters are angry, drooling white guys in NRA hats.
That’s right, a lie. As I’ve reported, 67% of mass shooters are black. Most people don’t realize that fact because the Pravda press perpetuates the myth that mass shooters are white dudes who got fired from Denny’s. When people hear “mass shooting,” they assume a white guy flipped out and blazed up a McDonald’s. Democrats want you to believe that. Sure, you heard about the Sacramento shooting, but did you hear about the 11 people who were shot the day before at rapper Big Boogie’s concert in Texas? I didn’t until just now. I’ve never even heard of Big Boogie. I wonder why the media ignored that story? Awww, we know! Let’s put it this way, no MAGA hats were recovered at the crime scene.
FACT-O-RAMA! Stalin, Castro, Mao, and Pol Pot took guns away from their people before slaughtering them. Biden wants to take your guns too. Why? Because he’s a communist and that’s what commies do.
This is how it works: the Democrats let criminals out of jail and then got rid of bail laws to keep them out. They defunded police departments nationwide. Criminals do what criminals do: they shoot people. When there is a mass shooting, Democrats say, “Look! Another mass shooting! Let’s take guns from law-abiding people!”
Let’s pause for a moment and consider how they are simultaneously blaming “ghost guns” (i.e. home-made firearms with no known manufacturer) at the same time they want to hold gun manufacturers liable for guns being used in crimes.
Today, America once again mourns for another community devastated by gun violence. In a single act in Sacramento, six individuals left dead and at least a dozen more injured. Families forever changed. Survivors left to heal wounds both visible and invisible.
I want to thank the first responders in Sacramento, and all those across the United States, who act every day to save lives. We know these lives were not the only lives impacted by gun violence last night. And we equally mourn for those victims and families who do not make national headlines.
But we must do more than mourn; we must act. That is why my Administration has taken historic executive action to implement my comprehensive gun crime reduction strategy — from standing up gun trafficking strike forces to helping cities across the country expand community violence interventions and hire more police officers for community policing.
We also continue to call on Congress to act. Ban ghost guns. Require background checks for all gun sales. Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability. Pass my budget proposal, which would give cities more of the funding they need to fund the police and fund the crime prevention and intervention strategies that can make our cities safer. These are just a few of the steps Congress urgently needs to take to save lives.
Question O’ The Day. I think the answer just might be ‘Reverse Gears!‘
They’ve banned high-capacity magazines and cracked down on assault weapons. They’ve made it so Californians have to pass a background check to purchase a gun and ammunition. They’ve prohibited buyers from having ammo or “ghost” gun parts shipped directly to their homes.
When it comes to gun laws, California’s legislators have passed some of the most stringent regulations in the country, checking off nearly every box on national gun control advocates’ wishlist.
A mass shooting early Sunday that left six dead and 12 wounded just a block from the Capitol — the very building where these laws were enacted — immediately prompted new calls for legislation to curb gun violence, from California elected officials and gun-control advocates across the nation.
“The scourge of gun violence continues to be a crisis in our country, and we must resolve to bring an end to this carnage,” Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’s already signed 15 gun-control laws, said Sunday in a prepared statement.
The call for action on the federal level reached as far as the White House.
“Ban ghost guns,” President Joe Biden said, expressing his sorrow for the Sacramento victims. “Require background checks for all gun sales. Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability.”
But what else can California’s lawmakers do to restrict guns that they haven’t already done — and have their laws survive the inevitable challenge by Second Amendment advocates?
Even before Sunday’s shooting, Democratic legislators planned to do more. One new bill, introduced by state Senator Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, would give citizens the “private right of action” to sue gun manufacturers and suppliers. The bill, SB 1327, is modeled after an anti-abortion law enacted in Texas.
State Sen. David Min, D-Irvine, introduced Senate Bill 915, which would prohibit the sale of firearms or ammunition on state property, effectively ending gun shows on 73 state-owned fairgrounds. Previous efforts on a blanket-ban on gun shows at fairgrounds have failed.
“These are all practical actions we can take today to stop gun violence,” Hertzberg said Sunday.
But the fact is, the recent legislation pending in California is relatively modest compared to some of the sweeping reforms that gun-control advocates are demanding in other states and on the federal level — simply because most of the toughest curbs are already part of California law.
Remember when one of the gravest threats to US democracy was the politicization of the DOJ, specifically a President influencing decisions about who should and shouldn't be prosecuted?
Now Biden is publicly pressuring Garland to prosecute Trump, and the same people are swooning: https://t.co/IyCffLs1La
BLUF:
As a direct result of having an ersatz president without any semblance of worthwhile goals or inspired vision, daily life in America is now close to an unmitigated disaster. Absent America’s clear leadership on the world stage, uncertainty and potential catastrophe loom everywhere, around every corner because foreign adversaries are emboldened by our weakness. We are living through the debacle of not having a real president, someone with a clear plan to better the country.
The United States does not have a real president right now. There is an individual named Joe Biden who shows up occasionally and sits in the Oval Office, but in no way can he be considered to be “President” in the traditional understanding of that term. Biden is an ersatz president.
An American president is essentially the CEO of the federal government. He or she sets the overall strategy and direction of the country, outlines and articulates its major objectives and manages the subordinate elements that create the actual policy in order to achieve the big-picture goals laid out by the president. Like any CEO, that person likely doesn’t personally have the specific technical knowledge and expertise on a micro level in a given subject area that his/her subordinates have (nor should a CEO or president get bogged down in that kind of attention-diverting minutia), but the CEO must have an overriding vision of their company’s intended direction and be able to see how the various component parts work together in the proper proportion and timing needed to achieve the stated goals. That holds true as well for the President of the United States.
Donald J. Trump was the prototypically ideal president in terms of setting clear achievement objectives for the country (securing the southern border, becoming energy independent, rebuilding our military, renegotiating advantageous international trade agreements, stopping China from taking unfair advantage of America in trade matters, getting NATO to pay more of its share of its defense needs, etc.) and putting in place the laser-focused personnel required to execute the plan. This was classic large-scale business-style vision and management at its best.
Putting aside the unfounded, irrational personal animosity that his political opponents felt for him for having defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 and for being direct, rough-edged and unapologetic in his dealings with the liberal media, recalcitrant foreign adversaries and feckless erstwhile “allies,” President Trump’s clear-eyed ambitions for the country led to a very targeted effort with unrelenting emphasis on the ultimate goal.
President Biden’s administration has released a series of documents encouraging gender-reassignment surgery and hormone treatments for minors.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs released a document Thursday titled “Gender Affirming Care and Young People.” The same day, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Child Traumatic Stress Network – another subset of the HHS – released a parallel document titled, “Gender-Affirming Care Is Trauma-Informed Care.”
The HHS documents describe what it calls appropriate treatments for transgender adolescents, including: “‘Top’ surgery – to create male-typical chest shape or enhance breasts;” and “‘Bottom’ surgery – surgery on genitals or reproductive organs, facial feminization or other procedures.”
“Medical and psychosocial gender affirming healthcare practices have been demonstrated to yield lower rates of adverse mental health outcomes, build self-esteem, and improve overall quality of life for transgender and gender diverse youth,” the OPA release states.
The NCTSN document is far longer than the brief outline provided by the OPA, but reiterates the same thought process and explanation for minors receiving alterations to their genitalia.
“For transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents, early gender-affirming care is crucial to overall health and well-being as it allows the child or adolescent to focus on social transitions and can increase their confidence while navigating the healthcare system,” the NCTSN wrote in their release. “It may include evidence-based interventions such as puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones.”
The NCTSN document goes out of its way to assure the public that the use of gender-affirming methods such as surgery and hormone replacement are not child abuse – most likely in response to recent policy decision in Texas that made such treatments illegal.
“Providing gender-affirming care is neither child maltreatment nor malpractice. The child welfare system in the US, charged with “improv(ing) the overall health and well-being of our nation’s children and families,” should not be used to deny care or separate families working to make the best decisions for their children’s well-being. There is no scientifically sound research showing negative impacts from providing gender-affirming care,” the NCTSN added.
The White House released a video to coincide with the new policies featuring President Biden speaking on the issue of transgender children.
Biden told the parents of transgender children that “affirming your child’s identity is one of the most powerful things you can do to keep them safe.”
Biden also indicated that his administration would fight state laws that limit how transgender athletes may compete, after transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas drew national attention at the NCAA championships.
Such state laws are “simply wrong” and “hateful,” Biden said, adding that his administration is “standing up for transgender equality in the classroom, on the playing field, at work, in our military, in our housing and health care systems – everywhere.”
A Texas judge earlier this month blocked the state from investigating parents who provide medical treatments to help their transgender children transition, according to reports.
Gov. Greg Abbott has called gender-affirming treatments “child abuse” and ordered Texas Child Protective Services to investigate any reported cases. Attorney General Ken Paxton also issued a legal opinion coming to the same conclusion, according to Houston Public Media.
In ordering the temporary injunction, District Court Judge Amy Clark Meachum said the investigations exceeded Abbott’s constitutional authority, noting that such instances had never been investigated before his order.
The notion is people are moving away from proggie controlled places to ‘free America’. Let’s hope they leave those politics behind them too.
Blue cities and states have lost ground since the spring of 2020.
The Census Bureau formally counts the population only once every decade, but it updates its population estimates annually. While those estimates are not always rock-solid, they reflect the best available data — more precise than moving-truck rentals — to show where our people are shifting.
The latest data add the population change for counties between mid 2020 and mid 2021, following the release in December of the population shifts for states. First, the grim national news:
“The population of the United States grew in the past year by 392,665, or 0.1%, the lowest rate since the nation’s founding.”
“33 states saw population increases and 17 states and the District of Columbia lost population, 11 of which had losses of over 10,000 people.”
“More than 73% (2,297) of U.S. counties experienced natural decrease in 2021, up from 45.5% in 2019 and 55.5% in 2020.”
With immigration sharply curtailed during the pandemic, Americans just aren’t reproducing fast enough to make up for deaths from Covid. Some of this is a temporary problem that should get a bit better as things reopen, but it also reflects long-term trends as birth rates fall. The United States remains in an enviable position: We can add as many people as we need just by letting in more immigrants, if we want. But depending too much on immigrants is a poor substitute for a more balanced approach to population growth built around more born-and-raised Americans.
(census.gov)
The boomingest place in America? Idaho. If we measure from April 2020, when the official census was taken, to July 2021, only ten states have grown their population by 1 percent or more:
If you’re keeping score at home, that’s seven states with Republican governors and Republican legislatures, one with a Democratic governor and a Republican legislature, and two with a Democratic governor and Democratic legislature. Of course, political leadership isn’t the only factor; who governs a state doesn’t even fully describe its governing climate, which may be built into long-standing laws. But the pattern is nonetheless pretty pronounced. Most of the growing are states in the Sun Belt or the Rockies with large religious populations.
By contrast, ten jurisdictions (eight states, D.C., and Puerto Rico) lost at least half a percent of their population:
Again, if we are keeping partisan score, the big blue states (New York, Illinois, and California) stick out along with D.C. and Hawaii as the top five slots on the list, with the Democrat-affiliated government of Puerto Rico in seventh place. The rest of the list includes two states with unified Republican governments, one (Louisiana) with a Democratic governor and Republican legislature, and one (Massachusetts) with a Republican governor and Democratic legislature.
(census.gov)
Drilling down to the county level, we see Idaho and the surrounding areas with the strongest growth, as well as big parts of Tennessee, east Texas, north Georgia, and most of Florida outside Miami, but also people fanning out of cities such as New York and D.C. to the surrounding suburbs. The Rockies and the southern Appalachians are doing strongly, as Americans literally headed for the hills; the big cities and the Mississippi Valley took a pounding, and no state suffered as uniformly between its big blue city and its red counties as Illinois.
The hardest-hit counties in population decline, reflecting remote-work patterns and rising crime and housing costs, were dominated by the big blue cities. Four of the top ten were Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, plus San Francisco and neighboring San Mateo County, Boston, and Jersey City.
What do we see in the booming areas? A lot of communities like The Villages and Myrtle Beach, and nine of the top ten in Florida, Idaho, or Utah.
As I have discussed at some length before, Democrats dodged a bullet by having the census conducted as of April 2020, rather than after a year of pandemic, remote work, and progressive law enforcement. If we take the mid-2021 population figures and run them through the formula for reapportionment, two states gain an additional House seat (Texas and Idaho), while two lose a seat (California and Minnesota). That is likely a net gain of two seats for Republicans in the House, and almost certainly a net gain of two electors in the Electoral College in a normal year.
Without getting too far into the math, these are the districts that just make it, and the ones that just miss, if we run the 2021 numbers:
While California would lose a seat if reapportionment was done as of mid 2021, it would also not be that distant from losing two seats. That is a grim trend for the Golden State if it continues in that direction for the rest of the decade, even at a slower pace post-pandemic. New York may also continue its downward trend, which has been ongoing for quite some time; the state had 45 House seats in the 1940s. Florida and Arizona, by contrast, have edged closer to adding another seat just from growing their populations since the census. In terms of the national balance of political power, this seems like good news for Republicans — but help that won’t arrive until 2032.
At least in the political climate of the moment, if not a decade from now, one thing all of this suggests is that we may see shifts in the relationship between the national popular vote for Congress and the presidency and the outcomes, as the major blue states in the next few years are likely to represent fewer people per House seat than the major red states.
My whole utility bill isn’t even close to $500. SloJoe’s senility strikes again
As sure as the sun rises in the east every day, two things are certain: First, Joe Biden — whose relationship with the truth is arm’s length at best — is going to say something that makes no sense at all, make up something really stupid, exaggerate or minimize the hell out of something, or purposely lie his ass off.
Bank it.
Second, there will be another clean-up in aisle 46. A White House staffer or a senior member of the administration is going to “correct” or explain what Joe meant to say, or didn’t mean to say, while the lapdog media flies wingman.
Bank that, too.
In today’s case in point, as reported by the New York Post, the White House was forced to correct the claim Biden made during his remarks announcing the planned release of 180 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the next six months: Americans who use renewable energy to power their homes could save “about $500 a month on average.”
If your home is powered by safer, cheaper, cleaner electricity, like solar or heat pumps, you can save about $500 a month on average.
Just one problem. Not even close to the truth. Biden overstated the estimated savings by $5,500.
Within hours — why hours? — the administration was forced to make a correction: it sent out a transcript of the bumbling Biden’s remarks with the word “month” crossed out and the word “year” added in brackets. According to the Post, the fact sheet sent to reporters prior to the speech contained the correct numbers.
If I were a cynic, I’d suggest Lyin’ Biden does this crap on purpose, knowing full well that more people will see him say “it” than will see a corrected transcript. Nah, that’s giving Corn Pop’s pal far too much credit.
Out of 27,900 research publications on gun laws, only 123 tested their effects rigorously. (‘rigorously’ as only in relation to the others which were unmitigated slop)
‘One (1) heartbeat away………….’ May God have mercy on us
Quip O’ The Day “She has convinced herself that everything she says is deeply profound”
KAMALA HARRIS: "For Jamaica, one of the issues that has been presented as an issue that is economic in the way its impact has been the pandemic…we will assist Jamaica in Covid recovery by assisting in terms of the recovery efforts in Jamaica that have been essential." pic.twitter.com/fmPJFTbKQ6
For the longest time, Vermont stood as a curious exception among states with Democrat- dominated governments, having practically no gun control laws. Constitutional carry was the tradition since the founding of the state and was sometimes called Vermont Carry in the Second Amendment community.
That sadly changed in 2018 when a swathe of new laws like (unenforceable) background checks for private sales, “high-capacity” magazine ban, a bump stock ban, red flag laws, and raising the age requirement were passed, proving to the Second Amendment community that no state is safe from the rapacious Gun Grab Lobby even if it has a centuries-long tradition of unimpeded gun ownership and low violence rates going back to the founding era.
Continuing the assault on the Second Amendment, the Vermont legislature passed a new bill which was signed into law by Republican Governor Phil Scott last week. This new law extends the background check “default proceed” duration from 3 days to 7 days, allowing the government to further delay the exercise of Second Amendment rights when the “instant” background check system doesn’t instantly return a clear answer.
What does a president do when inflation surges under his watch, gas prices are out of control, and his signature legislation has failed miserably ?
Pivot back to scapegoating the rich, apparently.
At least, that’s President Joe Biden’s latest tactic. On Monday, Biden proposed a new “minimum tax” on billionaires. “For too long, our tax code has rewarded wealth, not work, and contributed to growing income and wealth inequality in America,” Biden said in a statement. “Under current law, when an American worker earns a dollar of wages, that dollar is taxed as they earn it. But when a billionaire earns income because their investments increase in value, that gain is too often never taxed at all.”………
Philosophically, I certainly understand the desire not to increase taxes on high earners. But I also understand the reverse, as in they helped in a big way to install this regime, so let them get it good and hard.
……..actual conservatives have very few rich benefactors. They have many more billionaire oppressors.
Mark Zuckerberg used Facebook to silence Trump and other patriots opposed to the fascism rising from the halls of Congress.
Zuckerberg also paid off state election officials to rig the election in Wisconsin.
Twitter censors us as well.
Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.
Bill Gates is funding biolab research in Red China.
The Internet oligarchs are power-mad.
Clean up in aisle Biden – Clarifying the clarification. One More Time™
All this senile dolt can do is open his mouth and insert his feet.
He’s handed prepared answers, but he still can’t cut it.
The problem is, as POTUS, what he says IS POLICY (until it gets walked back by his lackeys). I wonder what could happen one day, when he might go total alzheimers, get his ‘back up’ in a fit of irate dementia, makes an idiotic decision and then tells his staff where to go when they try to walk it back?
The White House on Monday attempted to clarify what President Joe Biden said to reporters about Americans training Ukrainian troops in Poland.
During a question and answer session with members of the media at the White House, Biden responded to a question concerning his remark last week about what U.S. service members would see in Ukraine, “when you’re there.”
“You’re going to see, when you’re there, and some of you have been there, you’re going to see women, young people, standing in front of a damn tank…” he said.
But when asked Monday to explain what he meant, Biden said he was only talking with American troops about training the Ukrainians in Poland.
“I was talking to the troops. We are talking about helping train the troops in – that are in – the Ukrainian troops that are in Poland,” Biden said. “That’s what the context [was].”
“I was referring to being with and talking with the Ukrainian troops that are in Poland,” he added later in his remarks.
But the White House had to walk that back, after Politico reported on the exchange.
“There are Ukrainian soldiers in Poland interacting on a regular basis with U.S. troops, and that’s what the President was referring to,” a White House official said, clarifying Biden’s remarks.
If the United States is actually training the Ukrainian people, it would be a major development for the United States in the ongoing conflict between Poland and Russia.
Biden has repeatedly discussed American troops being deployed to Poland, but only to bolster NATO defenses, not to take an active role in Ukraine’s defense against Russia.
In December, Politico reported that Biden turned down a plan from the United States military to send in special operations personnel to Ukraine to advise and train the Ukrainians.
The Biden team nixed the idea over concerns of escalating tensions with Russia.
The idea of American troops in Ukraine is not uncommon.
In February, before Russia escalated its war, the Pentagon announced its decision to withdraw 160 members of the Florida National Guard who were in Ukraine training their military.
Of course, with Chicago crime stats like this; Murders up 55%, Shootings up 63%, Carjackings up 204%, her concern may be justified, and I’m not talking about danger from the criminal element, but a fed up citizenry.
For several years prior to 2020, violent crime in America’s major cities was on the decline. But since the riots that summer following the death of George Floyd, it is heading in the opposite direction.
Murders nationwide in 2020 rose a stunning 29.4 percent over the previous year, the largest annual increase since the FBI began tracking that data in the 1960s. The number of murders in Chicago climbed even more sharply, rising 55 percent. It was as if a switch had been flipped. At least ten major U.S. cities hit new murder highs in 2021, but Chicago led the way with 797, the city’s highest number in 25 years.
Chicago’s violent crime epidemic is not limited to murder. The city’s 3,561 shooting incidents in 2021 were up 63 percent over 2019. Expressway shootings in Chicago-Cook County rose even more dramatically, from 51 in 2019 to 130 in 2020 to 273 in 2021. These expressway shootings pushed Chicago’s actual 2021 murder total north of 800.
During a Los Angeles Board of Police Commission meeting earlier this week, LAPD Chief Michel Moore revealed that violent crimes have risen exponentially in the past year, moving the city closer to San Francisco in terms of the highest crime rates in the country.
According to the LAPD, citywide robberies are up 18% compared to this time last year, and up 5% compared to 2020. City wide robberies with a firearm also went significantly up, climbing 44% from this time last year, 57% from 2020, and 60% compared to 2019. While 36% of robberies and 74% of all robberies as part of the increase from last year used a firearm, the LAPD also got into specifics, such as noting that those who wore expensive jewelry in public have been targeted more often in armed robberies.
“Over the course of this year, the Department has experienced an increase in robberies taking place in various communities in the City of Los Angeles,” the LAPD said in a press release on Tuesday. “Most concerning is that there has been an increase in the levels of violence used during these robberies and the frequency in which a firearm was used. During the Board of Police Commission meeting on March 22, 2022, Chief Moore discussed citywide robbery statistics, crime prevention techniques, situational awareness, and mitigation.”
Genuine leaders never have to draw attention to how good their quality of leadership is.
Likewise terrible leaders almost always have crutches they lean on to hoist themselves upon to look like they’re leading.
This weekend was a case study in both.
After ending the somewhat mystical trip *President Biden made to NATO this week he decided to pay the troops a “surprise visit.”
He immediately gave a bizarre speech to men and women in uniform, broke all military protocol and insulted them in the mess hall, and issued a proclamation about regime change.
Meanwhile a former uniformed Captain in the US Army was busy in another struggle to pursue excellence, chase improvement, and to conduct one’s self with such discipline and effort that they literally slept that night with no regret.
Biden told the troops he leads that “When they go to Ukraine soon, and some of them had already been there, that they were going to see women stand in the middle of… er in front of a damn tank… and say ‘I’m not leavin’, I’m holding’ my ground… they’re incredible.”
Aside from the fact that our policy is that we are not sending our troops into Ukraine, it’s likely he pulled the rest of that made up imaginary scenario from stuff he saw on TV and or was from a dream that was caused by some undigested beef from the night before.
The other leader, when a camera was on him early in the week, had taken the moment to acknowledge the effort of those he labored against. “They were really tough,” he admitted. He then proceeded to give 100% of the credit to the people he leads, “but my guys, they worked so hard, and they’ve grown up so much in the past 10-12 days, and I just couldn’t be prouder. I kept thinking to myself ‘Holy Mackerel! I get to lead these guys.”
After Biden’s speech it was time to eat and upon entering the mess hall, he wandered over to a table, saw a box of pizza, proclaimed “hey look the pizza’s here.” He then opened it, his shaky grip waving a piece back and forth he lifted it to his lips and scarfed it. The only problem being that in the military the officers eat last and the higher the rank the longer you wait. And as the commander in chief no one out-ranked him. The shock and dismay by the troops in the room was captured on video and in pictures that flooded social media.
Meanwhile as the other leader was preparing his young men for their next challenge, the most serious they had faced yet, they were effusive to the camera about their leader’s example to them. They spoke of his personal commitment to helping them become better men in all of life—not merely the pursuit of their established goal. And to a man each of them said that the success in their present challenge was driven by a desire to honor him, for his lifetime of pouring out that good example to generations of men.
Before boarding Air Force One to return to the United States, speaking on Polish soil, Biden free formed this proclamation, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”It was a reference to Putin and openly disputed current policy. But even if it is or was in the process of becoming policy one would think it pretty stupid to openly say it. Especially so when the named paranoid dictator already suspects it to be the aim of the US.
Meanwhile the other leader, former United States Army Captain, and the winningest coach in college basketball’s history, Mike Krzyzewski, when asked his strategy to defeating Michigan State, Texas Tech, and Arkansas in back to back difficult tests in this year’s March Madness, would only talk publicly about the need to respect their opponent and to use grit and smarts to out play them.
The fact of the matter is that “Coach K” has on every occasion his team has won the national championship given all the credit to his players. And in every major loss on the national stage he’s shoulder all of the blame and responsibility for not preparing them well enough.
With Biden every tiny success comes from his own genius, his storied toughness, his impressive ability to do things that no one else has ever seemingly done. (Even if most of them never happened.)
And in the middle of one of the most miserable administrations we the American people have lived through he blames everyone except the very policies he’s put in place that has created the national malaise he ushered in.
Sadly we are losing the humble faithful soldiers like Mike Krzyzewski on the national stage. His enduring excellence has produced 15 ACC Tournament Championships, 13 Final Fours, 11 Coach of the year honors, 9 Gold Medals and 5 national championships with one more shot dangling before him.
Instead we’re stuck with a man who’s been in politics roughly the same length of time that the Coach has been coaching and as his own former boss would say should never be “underestimated when it comes to the ability to ‘mess’ things up.”
Character, humility, and service to others.
I know which of these two men I want my sons to emulate.
SACRAMENTO – “The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced,” noted the late musician and satirist Frank Zappa. I often think of that snarky comment as I write about the sausage-making process in city councils, state legislatures and the federal government. Did I mention that California’s state government has 518 agencies, boards and commissions?
Our system of checks, balances, more checks, additional balances, impact reports, legal challenges, voter initiatives, regulatory rulemakings and administrative hearings frustrates people who want to “get something done.” Americans spent $14 billion on the 2020 election cycle to influence political outcomes – and that was just for the presidential and congressional races.
I once ran a modest state bill to reduce the insanely onerous licensing regulations for people who shampoo hair at salons. After months of hearings and debate, the Assembly defeated it for going too far. That explains the public’s desire to cut through the red tape and, as Arnold Schwarzenegger once promised, “blow up the boxes” of government.
Yet after COVID-19, it’s obvious our democratic system of lawmaking is, as Winston Churchill put it, “the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Given the choice between a system resembling a Rube Goldberg cartoon (with his bizarre and overly complex contraptions designed to complete simple tasks) and one that’s streamlined and efficient, I’ll take Goldberg’s vision any day.
As we saw throughout the country but in California in particular, governors were happy to dispense with the usual checks and balances and impose rules by executive order and fiat. Some initial rules were defensible during a public-health crisis, but it wasn’t long before elected officials operated like czars – imposing illogical and contradictory restrictions that made no rhyme or reason.
The White House was forced to once again clean up highly problematic remarks made by Democrat President Joe Biden during his trip to Poland this week.
“A dictator, bent on rebuilding an empire, will never erase the people’s love for liberty,” Biden said on Saturday at the Royal Castle in Warsaw. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, for free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness. For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
The White House had to quickly clean up the president’s remarks after they were widely interpreted in reports as him calling for regime change in Russia.
“The President’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region,” a White House official said. “He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”
🚨President Biden ended his speech seeming to call for regime change in Russia: “For Gods sake, this man cannot remain in power!”
Immediately after, a WH official walks that back. “He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.” pic.twitter.com/kFCJGacwNH
The administration also had to clean up remarks that Biden made in Poland on Friday when he appeared to tell U.S. soldiers that they would be getting deployed to Ukraine, which would represent a serious escalation in the ongoing conflict, and would draw NATO into the war against Russia.
ABC News reported that Biden “raised eyebrows when he appeared to tell the group that American troops will be going into Ukraine, though he has repeatedly said that he will not send troops there.”
“You know, with the Ukrainian people, Ukrainian people have a lot of backbone, they have a lot of guts and I’m sure you’re observing it,” Biden said. “And you’re gonna see when you’re there, and some of you have been there. You’re gonna see, you’re gonna see women, young people standing, standing in the middle, in front of a damn tank, just saying I’m not leaving. I’m holding my ground. They’re incredible. But they take a lot of inspiration from us.”
The Biden administration had to swiftly clean up after the president by issuing a statement claiming that his position on deploying U.S. soldiers had not changed.
“The president has been clear we are not sending U.S. troops to Ukraine and there is no change in that position,” the administration said.
The administration also had to clean up remarks that Biden made on Thursday when he said that if Russia were to use chemical weapons in Ukraine, “it would trigger a response in-kind.”
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the U.S. has “no intention” of using chemical weapons and that what Biden meant was that Russia would pay a “severe price.”
“And I won’t go beyond that other than to say the United States has no intention of using chemical weapons, period, under any circumstances,” Sullivan said. “I will just say, with respect to any use of weapons of mass destruction — nuclear, chemical, biological — Russia would pay a severe price.”
