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JANUARY 25,  2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

WHAT A DOPE – OVERNIGHT:  We've all noticed how members of city councils across the country often seem far to the left of their cities.  We have the latest example.  In the last week two New York City police officers were murdered while on a call in Harlem to break up a domestic disturbance.  The local councilwoman, a renowned nutbag of the first rank, flashed her insensitivity while attempting an evenhanded condolence message.  From the New York Post:   A city council member from Harlem offered her sympathy to both the relatives of two NYPD cops gunned down last week — and to their accused killer.  “My deepest condolences to the families of Officer [Jason] Rivera, Officer [Wilbert] Mora and Lashawn McNeil,” Kristin Richardson Jordan wrote on Twitter Tuesday.  “Lives lost due to broken public safety & mental health systems that spare nobody. Harlem stands with the families of the fallen and we will not stop fighting for a safer world for all,” she said...Cops blasted the Democratic Socialist city lawmaker for looping together the two slain officers with their alleged murderer.  “How could she mention a coward, cold-blooded murderer in the same sentence as two heroes,” said a Bronx cop.  “I find it very disturbing to see the perp’s name in the same sentence as the two heroes who are not even buried yet,” said a Brooklyn detective.  A Manhattan cop added: “She put the names of our dead cops with their killer in the same breath she wishes condolences.”  Nothing will happen to the idiot councilwoman.  She's pretty typical of the leftist leadership of her party. 

January 25, 2022       Permalink

I LOVE IT, I LOVE IT, I LOVE IT – OVERNIGHT:  Reality overtakes the Democratic Party.  From the Washington Times: 

House Democrats are privately urging colleagues to forgo their retirement plans and tough it out in what’s expected to be a brutal election year for the party, hoping they will help fend off an anticipated Republican takeover in November.

With 28 House Democrats set to retire this year, including several in toss-up districts, lawmakers told The Washington Times that they are pleading with them not to give up without a fight.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said he has been trying to persuade Wisconsin Rep. Ron Kind and other Democrats to delay their decision to bow out in highly vulnerable swing districts.

“I talked to him a couple of weeks ago, and I said, ‘Please reconsider.’ Nobody had joy when Ron Kind announced he was not going to run,” Mr. Cleaver, Missouri Democrat, said in an interview.

Rep. Lou Correa, California Democrat, said he spoke to several members about rethinking their retirement announcements, though none would reconsider.

“It’s clear by the time they announce that they made their decision,” Mr. Correa said.
He blamed the increasingly polarized environment on Capitol Hill for promoting the growing number of retirements.

“Most of them think it’s just too much battle up here,” Mr. Correa said. “I mean, I asked myself the same thing three weeks ago. Do I run for reelection?”

Democrats are also facing an uphill battle in midterm elections that historically favor the party that does not control the White House. Further dimming prospects for Democrats are President Biden’s rapidly sinking approval ratings.

A House Democratic aide said it’s no shock that members are having private conversations with their retiring colleagues to try and persuade them to run for reelection.

“That wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the kind of thing that’s happening,” the aide said. “It’s also the perspective of [Democratic National Congressional Committee Chair Sean Patrick Maloney] or whoever else is making those asks that if they’re fans of those people and they had success, it makes total sense that they’d want them to stick around.”

COMMENT:  The problem with the Dems is that they're dramatically detached from the country.  You sometimes wonder what nation they're living in.  They actually championed defunding the police – perhaps the most unpopular issue of our lifetime.  They were so sure America was with them. 

So now all those Dems are leaving Congress, each one singing "My Way."  Their way just flopped.

January 25,  2022     Permalink

JANUARY 24,  2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

SURRENDER AT DARTMOUTH – OVERNIGHT:  An Ivy League institution caves to the mob.  From Legal Insurrection:   Dartmouth College administrators canceled an on-campus appearance by conservative journalist Andy Ngo Thursday night after a deluge of online threats from Antifa members.  Ngo, who has built a national reputation covering violent, far-Left protests often given little attention by the mainstream media, was set to appear at an event hosted by the Dartmouth College Republicans and the conservative activists of Turning Point USA.  New Hampshire Journal was turned away at the door of Moore Hall by Dartmouth security on Thursday evening. The college security officer said the event was changed to be an online appearance, but he would not say why the change was made.  “That’s a decision above my pay grade,” the security officer said.  We all know why.  Pressure from leftist extremists.  The cave-in by Dartmouth is disgraceful, and will only mean more bullying in the future, and more threats of violence. 

January 24, 2022       Permalink

ADAMS'S BIG APPLE – OVERNIGHT:  In office less than four weeks, New York Mayor Eric Adams is already facing intense pressure over crime and the murder of cops.  As mayor of America's largest city, what he does, or doesn't do, will influence the nation.  And people here are demanding quick, effective solutions to rising crime.  From the New York Post: 

Mayor Adams’s long-promised plan to make New York safe landed on the table with a big fat plop Monday. It’s dauntingly complicated, it’s over-stuffed with concessions to grasping social activists and it’s impossibly dependent on actors far beyond the mayor’s control.

But it just might make a difference.

Urban America’s public-safety debate — absolutely unhinged two years ago — seems to be coming full circle.

Back then, the radical battle-cry was: “Get cops off the street!!”

Lately it has become “get guns off the street” — and this is the theme of the Adams plan. But confiscation is never going to happen, at least not soon, and certainly not in sufficient numbers.

So now we are hearing the first faint hints of a return to common-sense law-enforcement — an acknowledgment that it’s now time to get actual criminals off the street. Or, to quote Adams speaking from City Hall yesterday, “We’re going to [target] the trigger-pullers.”

Adams said he plans to reinstate the anti-crime patrol unit, which former Mayor de Blasio disbanded.

To that end, he promised that the NYPD’s hugely successful anti-crime patrols — dissolved by Bill de Blasio — will be reinstated. And that they’ll be deployed to 30 violence-wracked police precincts within three weeks.

Strong words and a promise of swift action, just 24 days into a new administration. This is a hopeful combination.

It’s true that the plan comes with obscure details, beside-the-point gun-trafficking rhetoric and pedestrian pledges to address social concerns linked to crime — and so on and so forth.

The NYPD confiscated 6,000 illegal guns last year, and has collected 350 more in 2021.

Indeed, the lard is so thick that it gets in the way of what seems to be a clear-eyed exposition of what really enables violent street crime: weak-willed policing complicated by wrong-headed penal-code “reforms” driven by deeply problematic radical state and local politicking.

This isn’t limited to New York, of course. It’s driving urban chaos across the country — and the effect is not limited to gun violence. Out-of-control vagrancy, publicly expressed untreated mental illness, organized shoplifting/looting and so on all need to be addressed. Happily, the Adams plan seems aware of these challenges.

COMMENT:  The question, as always, is whether the Adams plan will ever go into effect.  Will Adams be independent enough to take on the wildly left City Council?  Or will he eventually cave to that body, and the radical black establishment, and The New York Times?  New York's first black mayor, David Dinkins, caved in, and that resulted in his being defeated for re-election by Rudy Giuliani.

We await breathlessly.  We fear there may be more killings of cops.  And more pressure on the mayor. Crime may get worse in the summer months.  It always does. 

Late polls show that, overwhelmingly, rising crime is a key issue with the public, with nine months to go until the 2022 midterms.  We live in a decisive year.

January 24,  2022    Permaline