Senator Steven Bradford. (Photo: Kevin Sanders for California Globe)
Category: California
It’s not law-abiding gun owners who are to blame for San Francisco’s violent crime, in other words, but that’s not stopping some supervisors in the city from pointing the finger at concealed carry holders in response to several recent shootings in the city, including one in which nine people were injured last weekend. On Tuesday Supervisor Catherine Stefani and City Attorney David Chiu rolled out a new ordinance that would prevent the handful of people with active permits from lawfully carrying in many publicly accessible places, including virtually all commercial establishments by default.
Flanked by Chiu and several members from gun safety advocacy groups Moms Demand Action and United Playaz, a local violence-reduction group, Stefani took aim at the controversial ruling, calling it a “dangerous step backwards and a gross misinterpretation of the Constitution” by a “rogue” Supreme Court.
“Every day gun violence takes lives, devastates families and destroys communities across our nation,” she said. “I’m tired of thoughts and prayers. I’m tired of the memorials. I’m tired of the inaction by those who are beholden to the gun lobby. The Second Amendment is not a suicide pact.”
Stefani’s ordinance marks another likely clash between advocates for gun safety and Second Amendment activists.
The legislation would make it a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine to carry concealed firearms in so-called “sensitive spaces,” such as city buildings, hospitals, schools, churches, banks, playgrounds and parks, as well as private businesses whose owners bar firearms — dramatically expanding existing bans. Stefani planned to introduce the legislation to the Board of Supervisors at Tuesday’s meeting.
If gun control could stop “gun violence” San Francisco would be the safest place in the United States. The city has blocked gun stores from operating inside the city limits, there are no public gun ranges in the city, and it’s smack-dab in the middle of the state with the most restrictive gun laws in the nation.
Despite that, San Francisco still sees its share of gun-involved crime, including the aforementioned shooting in the Mission District. Police aren’t looking for a concealed carry holder in that case; instead, they’re looking for a convicted felon who has multiple arrests for drugs and weapons and who has been able to largely escape consequences for his previous criminal acts thanks to the soft-on-crime attitudes of state and local lawmakers and prosecutors.
While retailers are closing up shop due to rampant theft and residents are searching for safer pastures outside the city limits in order to escape the progressive dystopia, supervisors like Stefani are now trying to make it impossible for those who remain to defend themselves with a firearm beyond the confines of their home.
The inevitable lawsuits to come will almost certainly end up with most of these “gun-free zones” tossed out, but the anti-2A ideology that’s behind their introduction will remain in place, and it’s going to take years of activism and engagement before San Francisco is forced to recognize the fundamental nature of our right to keep and bear arms.
—————————————————————————————- Clint Eastwood was a prophet in his own land. When he made the Dirty Harry Films oh so long ago! Where he decried the early signs of rot in his hometown. As it is you could not pay me to visit Sodom by the bay! Grumpy
WASHINGTON, D.C. — FBI whistleblowers have come forward with damning allegations against Bank of America (BoA). According to Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the banking giant has been revealing information to the FBI about its customer’s gun purchases without a warrant. Now the pair has sent letters to other banks to see if they also violated the privacy rights of their customers.
After the protest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Bank of America provided the FBI with a list of customers who made transactions in or around Washington, D.C., purchased a flight to the Nation’s Capital, or booked a hotel room in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Most of Bank of America’s customers that attended the large rally never entered the Capitol Building, and the FBI did not have probable cause to allow the law enforcement agency to get a court order for the bank to surrender the documents.
When the FBI approached BoA about turning over the records, the bank complied without requesting a court order.
The megabank would put anyone in or around D.C. and purchase a gun on the top of the list. By simply being in or around D.C. on January 6 and purchasing a firearm using a BoA product, the FBI would mark you for investigation. The FBI investigated many BoA customers without a court order and with the full cooperation of Bank of America.
“In a transcribed interview, retired FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst George Hill testified that BoA, ‘with no directive from the FBI, data-mined its customer base’ and compiled a list of BoA customers who used a BoA product during a specified date range. Mr. Hill further noted that ‘on top of that list, they put anyone who had purchased a firearm during any date.’ Mr. Hill also testified that the list that BoA provided targeted transactions in Washington D.C., and the surrounding area,” the letter reads.
The letter was sent to JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup, Truist Financial Corporation, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp, and PNC Financial Services. The Congressmen are asking the banks to provide any documents or communications about the release of customer data from the January 6, 2021, timeframe to the FBI or any other federal law enforcement agencies.
This request is to see if the other major banks of similar size leaked the same customer information to the federal authorities that Bank of America released.
“Congress has an important interest in ensuring that Americans’ private information is protected from collection by federal law enforcement agencies without proper due process. The Committee and Select Subcommittee must understand if, how, and to what extent financial institutions, including PNC Financial Services, worked with the FBI to collect Americans’ private data,” the letter reads.
Many are concerned that the FBI is becoming overtly political and weaponized against anyone the Biden regime considers enemies. We have seen the weaponization of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) against conservative non-profits. The FBI has also used documents like the discredited “Steele Dossier” to get FISA warrants to surveil political opponents. Some of those concerned about the weaponization of government agencies are serving in Congress.
It should concern all Americans (not only gun owners) that big business is working hand and hand with big government. Instead of protecting its customers’ data, it turns it over to the surveillance state without a fight. Gun owners now know that Bank of America is not protecting their data from an ever-encroaching government. The only question now is how far the rot goes.
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
Ostensibly aimed at curbing workplace violence — a nice way of saying “criminals who come in to steal stuff and create the conditions for violence” — California Retailers Association chief Rachel Michelin described the bill in harsh terms. “It says no employee can approach someone who is shoplifting. So even if someone is trained on how to deter someone from doing that, now they’re not allowed to approach someone. So, what does that mean?”
“We are opening up the door to allow people to walk into stores, steal and walk out,” she said.
Cortese, a Democrat, says that “We don’t want rank-and-file employees to be forced to place themselves in harm’s way,” something that Michelin says employers aren’t doing anyway.
What SB 553 looks like to me is more virtue signaling, enshrined into law, that California now turns a blind eye to shoplifting. That’s certainly the way criminals will read it.
Meanwhile, over at the San Francisco Standard, they’re all a flutter over when the new downtown Ikea will finally open. There are signs of life at the construction site, “potentially signaling the company’s commitment to opening its Market Street store this year.” The bright blue and yellow store sign is posted and lit, and there are bare shelves in place, waiting to be stocked.
But maybe the question that San Francisco shoppers should ask isn’t when the new Ikea will open, but how long before corporate is forced to close it.
Downtown San Francisco has some of the priciest real estate in the world but empty office buildings, rampant shoplifting, and other so-called “lifestyle crimes” have forced big-name retailers to abandon the area. A massive Whole Foods closed in April after just a year of being open, with employees having to call the police an average of 10 times every week. Two city Nordstrom locations will close this summer after the company decided not to renew their leases on Market Street and at the Westfield Mall. Saks Off Fifth is closing, as are H&M and Uniqlo. Walgreens has closed several locations around the city.
And that’s just in San Francisco, just in the last few months.
Democrats like to portray their soft stance on shoplifting as a reasonable measure: “You wouldn’t prosecute a starving man for stealing a loaf of bread, would you?”
But in San Francisco, for example, most of the shoplifting is done by well-organized theft rings operating out of neighboring Oakland. Criminals know the police won’t do anything because the district attorney won’t do anything. Now, if Senate Bill 553 passes the Assembly and earns Gov. Gavin Newsom’s slimy signature, not even store security staff will be allowed to do anything.
High-end retailers will continue to flee, and the grocery and convenience stores remaining will quickly move to a Soviet model of retailing. Customers will not be allowed past a heavily protected cash register. After they pay, a clerk will retrieve their goods for them and then pass them through the opening in a prison-like cage.
Remember when suburban and rural folks used to make special trips to the city just to do some shopping?
Good times, fading fast.
—————————————————————————– Now call me silly or worse. But it seems to me that the State Legislature of California has a “few” other minor issues that could be looked at. Instead of pandering to the criminal class.
Like oh let us say, Tax Reform, Term Limits, Water issues, Homeless / Bums, Infrasturcture, Housing, Over crowding, Gun issues, Mental health, Traffic, Over regulation of everything, Anti business enviroment, locking up bad folks and throwing away the key. Or let say also fighting illegal immigation instead of incouraging it. But whom am I ? I am just a taxpayer who helps foot the bills. Grumpy
A vintage Model 19 S&W with the original box, a gun collector’s
dream. Why should anyone wait 10 days to take home a classic like this?
Declaring “a right delayed is a right denied,” the Second Amendment Foundation’s Alan Gottlieb recently announced a lawsuit — this outfit specializes in legal action, some 50 currently underway around the country — challenging California’s 10-day waiting period on firearms purchases.
Gottlieb has a point. Why should any law-abiding citizen have to wait more than a week to take delivery of a firearm he or she has a constitutionally protected right to have?
By no small coincidence, the California lawsuit came about the same time Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a perennial gun control advocate, was signing legislation setting a 10-day waiting period for gun purchases in the Evergreen State. Nobody has ever provided a rational justification for making gun buyers wait for any length of time to buy a firearm.
Anti-gunners only think they’ve provided good reasons: It’s a “cooling off” period so somebody doesn’t a) shoot their neighbor, b) shoot their spouse or “significant other,” or, c) shoot themselves. It allows for an “expanded background check” so government can determine whether the buyer is preparing to, a) rob a bank, b) stage a mass shooting.
All of this is pretty much nonsense, and waiting period proponents know it. What may really be at work here is one more hoop through which citizens must jump as government tries to convince us the Second Amendment is a regulated privilege.
Joining SAF are the North County Shooting Center, San Diego County Gun Owners PAC, California Gun Rights Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, PWGG LLP, John Phillips, Alisha Curtin, Dakota Adelphia, Michael Schwartz, Darin Prince and Claire Richards. They are represented by attorneys Bradley A. Benbrook and Stephen M. Duvernay at Benbrook Law Group in Sacramento. Defendants are Attorney General Rob Bonta and Allison Mendoza, director of the California Department of Justice, Bureau of Firearms, in their official capacities. The case is known as Richards v. Bonta and it was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.
“There is nothing in the Second Amendment about waiting more than a week in order to exercise the right to keep and bear arms,” Gottlieb said. “California’s waiting period relegates the Second Amendment to the status of a government-regulated privilege, in direct conflict to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declared in its 2008 Heller ruling that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.”
And it goes a little deeper, he explained.
“There’s a Fourteenth Amendment aspect to this case,” Gottlieb added. “The state broadly discriminates against average citizens by allowing exemptions to nearly two-dozen categories of favored individuals who can take possession of firearms without having to endure the delay, which violates the Equal Protection clause. We’re hoping to bring this practice to an end.”
“Really Silly”
SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut, himself a practicing attorney, noted the Golden State’s waiting period restriction “isn’t analogous to any constitutionally relevant history and tradition of regulating firearms.” His criticism of California’s waiting period didn’t stop there.
“Where this really gets silly,” he observed at the time the lawsuit was filed, “is when the waiting period restriction even applies to a gun buyer who already owns other firearms. Not to mention, those who are looking to acquire a firearm for protection immediately do not have the luxury of waiting 10 days. Long story short, the state’s 10-day waiting period must be declared unconstitutional and enjoined, which is the purpose of our lawsuit. We’re asking the court for injunctive and declaratory relief.”
The Double Standard
It has often been said about liberals that if they didn’t have the double standard, they’d have no standards at all.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz was recently victimized by the
political double standard. (Official photo, Cruz website
Case in point: Last month, in the aftermath of a highly publicized mass shooting at a mall in the Dallas suburb of Allen, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz commented on Twitter that he was “praying” for the families of the victims.
“Heidi and I are praying for the families of the victims of the horrific mall shooting in Allen, Texas,” Cruz wrote. “We pray also for the broader Collin County community that’s in shock from this tragedy.”
Typical of the gun control crowd lately, Cruz was pilloried for his remark, according to The Guardian.
The backlash included nasty remarks from various anti-gunners, including Shannon Watts, founder of the gun prohibition group Moms Demand Action. Her Twitter message was blunt: “YOU helped arm him (the gunman) with guns, ammo and tactical gear. He did exactly what you knew he’d do. Spare us your prayers and talk of justice for a gunman who is … dead.”
Funny thing about shooting one’s mouth off on social media; you occasionally shoot yourself in the foot. To wit: About the same time Cruz was talking about remembering the victims in his prayers, Joe Biden was releasing a statement from the White House in which he announced, “Jill and I are praying for their families and for others critically injured, and we are grateful to the first responders who acted quickly and courageously to save lives.”
Apparently, Watts and other Cruz critics had used up all of their righteous indignation and had none left over for their guy in the Oval Office.
Took ‘Em a While
Following the shooting, Texas lawmakers moved a piece of legislation raising the minimum age for purchasing a semiautomatic rifle in the Lone Star State. It’s something which has happened in other states over the past couple of years, and the effort started in Texas following last year’s grade school attack in Uvalde.
The Texas Tribune reported on the legislative action, but waited a whole eight paragraphs into the story before acknowledging something which should have been right up front. Raising the minimum age would have had no impact (that’s zero, zip, nada) on the Texas mall killer.
“Because the man identified as the gunman in Allen was 33, raising the age limit for semi-automatic rifle purchases likely wouldn’t have kept him from purchasing such a weapon,” the newspaper admitted.
More Hypocrisy
Readers might recall another tragic mass killing in Texas just 24 hours after the mall shooting, but then, again, perhaps not because this was different.
Where eight people died at the Dallas-area mall, eight more people were killed when a guy ran over them with an SUV in Brownsville as they were waiting at a bus stop. The aforementioned Alan Gottlieb, this time speaking on behalf of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, had some timely observations.
CCRKBA’s Alan Gottlieb says motor vehicles are
the new “assault weapons” nobody wants to ban.
“Brownsville was just the latest outrage which proves people intent on … mayhem don’t always use firearms,” he said, “but in none of these cases has anyone ever tried to blame, and then ban, motor vehicles. Yet, the victims are just as dead.”
He’s got a point. Early in my career, I frequently was called upon by the Washington State Patrol to photograph fatal accident scenes in the mountain country east of Seattle, primarily along Interstate 90. In those days, troopers didn’t have cameras, so they needed somebody to handle the chore and, as the editor of the local newspaper, I had a camera. I lost count of the number of fatal accidents to which I responded.
Gottlieb said motor vehicles were “the new assault weapons the gun banners don’t want to ban.” He ran down a short list of mass murders (by the gun control formula of more than four victims) committed in recent years with motor vehicles.
“Remember the six people murdered by Darrell E. Brooks when he drove an SUV through the annual Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 2021,” Gottlieb noted. “Sixty-two other people were injured in that rampage.
“Eight people were killed on a New York City bike path in 2017 when an Islamic extremist deliberately ran them down with a rented pickup truck,” he continued. “The driver was punished, not every truck owner in America.
“Who can forget the 2016 mass murder in Nice, France when a man drove a large truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day,” Gottlieb recalled. “He killed 84 people and injured hundreds more.”
In each of these cases, the perpetrator was held responsible. Their choice of weapon was never demonized in the media the same way firearms have been singled out.
“Our ability to make a more perfect union is literally written into the Constitution,” said Governor Gavin Newsom. “So today, I’m proposing the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution to do just that. The 28th Amendment will enshrine in the Constitution common sense gun safety measures that Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and gun owners overwhelmingly support – while leaving the 2nd Amendment unchanged and respecting America’s gun-owning tradition.”
All it requires is one teensy little amendment to the Constitution that would neither “leave the 2nd Amendment unchanged” nor “respect America’s gun-owning tradition” as Newsom claims because Newsom hates your rights and is also a known liar.
Newsom’s 28th Amendment, if adopted, would raise the minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21; mandate universal background checks; institute a “reasonable” waiting period for all purchases; and ban so-called assault weapons. In addition, it would authorize Congress, state governments, and even local governments to impose even stricter measures. Under the 28th Amendment, I guess Sacramento could legalize a state Gestapo to take every California resident’s guns away and that would be totally kosher.
What’s reasonable? I suppose that’s up to the courts to decide. What’s an assault weapon? State governments have tried again and again to define it, and sometimes comically failed.
So the 2nd Amendment would still be there in the Constitution. But like the 18th Amendment outlawing the sale, production, or transportation of alcohol was superseded by the 21st, ending Prohibition, the 2nd would be completely gutted by Gavin’s 28th.
What I’ve been unable to find — even on Newsom’s official release announcement — is the actual text of the amendment. It could be even worse than Newsom describes it. Since the text seems to be nowhere to be found, I’m forced to conclude it is far worse than even Newsom describes it.
Amending the Constitution, fortunately, is easier said than done. It requires a two-thirds majority vote in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, followed by ratification by three-fourths of the states. Amendments can also be proposed and adopted by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures — something that has never happened in our country’s history.
Only 27 amendments have ever been adopted, the first ten — the Bill of Rights — as a package deal. So, really, the amendment process has only taken place 18 times.
The Framers’ wisdom puts Newsom’s proposal, which is a non-starter in every red state, at a serious disadvantage. Liberty lovers can breathe easy at Newsom’s conspicuous posturing to Democrat primary voters… but remain ever-vigilant against the next attempt.
———————————————————————————-If this “person” were to tell me that the Pacific Ocean was wet. I would go & check just to make sure!! And no I did not vote for him either. Grumpy
Senator Steven Bradford. (Photo: Kevin Sanders for California Globe)
Bill to Limit Police From Issuing Tickets for ‘Low-Level Violations’ Narrowly Passed In Senate
Sen. Bradford says SB 50 will ‘help to protect Californians of color from unnecessary harm’
By Evan Symon, June 1, 2023 1:10 pm
A bill to limit law enforcement officers from issuing tickets for “low-level violations”, such as expired plates or having a light out, was narrowly passed in the Senate on Wednesday.
Senate Bill 50, authored by Senator Steven Bradford (D-Gardena), would prohibit a law enforcement officer from stopping or detaining the operator of a motor vehicle or bicycle for a low-level infraction unless a separate, independent basis for a stop exists. The bill would authorize a law enforcement officer who does not have grounds to stop a vehicle or bicycle, but can determine the identity of the owner, to send a citation or warning letter to the owner.
According to SB 50, low-level infractions would include:
- A violation related to the registration of a vehicle or vehicle equipment
- A violation related to the positioning or number of license plates when at least one plate is clearly displayed
- A violation related to vehicle lighting equipment not illuminating, if the violation is limited to a single brake light, headlight, rear license plate, or running light, or a single bulb in a larger light of the same
- A violation related to vehicle bumper equipment
- A violation related to bicycle equipment or operation
In addition, window tinting was originally included in the bill before being removed in a later version. Commercial vehicles would not be covered by the bill and would still be able to be pulled over solely for any of the above reasons if the bill is passed.
Senator Bradford says he wrote the bill over racial profiling concerns by police officers simply pulling over vehicles on one of those pretexts when there is suspicion, as well as concerns of escalated violence in traffic stops caused by simple pull overs.
“We have seen far too many times how traffic stops can rapidly escalate and turn deadly. In this day and age, there’s no reason why Californians should be stopped and potentially subjected to brutality or dehumanization because of an expired license plate,” said Senator Bradford in February. “This legislation will reduce the potential for more harm to innocent members of the public.”
“SB 50 will especially help to protect Californians of color from unnecessary harm and ensure that law enforcement has more time to focus on community safety by preventing and solving serious crimes. The data clearly backs up the need for this legislation. Black Californians are far more likely to be targeted by police. Passing SB 50 will also help to reduce the risk of harm to law enforcement officers by limiting the need for one of the most dangerous elements of their job.”
Bradford specifically cited a 2022 ACLU study that found that sheriff’s deputies in Los Angeles and Riverside counties spent nearly 9 out of every 10 hours on stops initiated by officers rather than responding to calls for help. Of those stops, 80% were for traffic violations.
SB 50 divides Legislature
Introduced in February, SB 50 quickly became a divisive bill, with many Democrats siding with Republicans against the bill. While supporters used Bradford’s reasoning in backing the bill, detractors quickly noted that traffic infractions were put in place to help save lives and that simple traffic infractions often lead to larger crimes being found out or calling in to find that the driver has active warrants.
“A lot of times police will find bad people,” said Senator Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta). “Like in Riverside when they got the notorious serial killer William Suff. He was actually pulled over for a taillight violation and subsequently they figured out who he was and arrested him.”
While SB 50 started strong, the growing number of detractors soon became apparent in Senate committee votes. This led to a full Senate vote showdown this week where the bill was passed 22-11 with 7 abstaining. Had a few of the abstaining votes switched to “no,” SB 50 would not have passed.
SB 50 now heads to the Assembly for a vote, where it is expected to face a stiff challenge due to the growing number of Democrats against the bill. While Bradford hopes to amend the bill again to allow for police to pull someone over for multiple of the challenged safety infractions, such as a broken taillight and expired registration, in an attempt to draw back many votes, it also risks the vote coming back to a clearly divided Senate.
“He doesn’t want to admit it, but SB 50 is really not in great shape,” explained former police officer and law enforcement advisor Joaquin Diaz to the Globe on Thursday. “The fact that many traffic violation pull overs result in larger crimes to be found, convinced many to not go for this one.
As has the question of what to do if a few of those infractions happen, but it sounds like Bradford is quickly correcting that mistake. And then there is the issue of safety. A headlight being out is very unsafe, I don’t care if it was faulty or whatnot. It limits your vision, especially in parts of the state not so lit up. And the back light being out could affect your blinkers. Why would you be against safety?”
“But, the big thing is, if police are determined, they’ll find the ways. If there is suspicion and a light is out they can clock you going a few miles above the speed limit or see you give a swerve, or change lanes without signaling. Something else. There’s always something. So this bill is also largely moot. At most, it would just be a smaller added step. At the least, it will mean extra tickets for someone because the police found another reason for the pullover, and now that person the bill was supposed to spare just got even more in trouble. The bill is a nothing bill, and more and more people in Sacramento are realizing this.”
SB 50 is expected to be heard next in the Assembly.
The BIG San Diego Gun Show
The The BIG San Diego Gun Show will be held on Jun 3rd-4th, 2023 in San Diego, CA. This San Diego gun show is held at East San Diego Masonic Lodge
————————————————————————————-
Now for the BAD News
In that I just came back from the San Diego Gun Show in East San Diego with the Boss. Who had a great time down there by the way as Dago is a really nice town.
But I digress. Here is what I saw while there at around 14:00 today. A grand total of about 20 guns for sale there. The rest of it was basically a really nice knife show. So care to guess which “show” this old fart and his money is NOT ever going to again ? One guess only Gang by the way
Grumpy
PS I guess that the age of going to a decent Gun Show & having some fun with old /new friends in the formerly Golden State is gone for good!
So Thanks Sacramento for a job that was REALLY well done & close to your heart! (Sacramento’s mantra is I swear “Somebody out there is somehow having fun & or making money. SO we gotta stop it by all means fair or foul!”)
by Victor Davis Hanson
A sign of a civilization in headlong decline is its embrace of absurdities. Unfortunately for the United States, we are witnessing an epidemic of nihilist nonsense. Here are a few examples:
Reparations
How could a dysfunctional state like California even contemplate $800 billion in reparations?
The state currently faces a $31 billion annual deficit—and it’s climbing. The state’s $100 billion high-speed rail project is inert, a veritable Stonehenge of concrete monoliths without a foot of track laid down.
California’s income tax rates are already the highest in the nation. Its sales taxes, electricity rates, and gas taxes and prices are among the steepest in the country. And for what?
Crime, homelessness, and medieval decay characterize the once great downtowns of San Francisco and Los Angeles. It is now not safe to walk alone in any major California city after dark.
Shoplifting and smash-and-grab theft are no longer treated as real crimes. The result is the mass flight of brand stores from our downtowns and inner cities, with all the accustomed cries of “racism,” even as racist public prosecutors pick and choose whether to indict the arrested on the basis of race.
California infrastructure, once the best in the county, is now among the worst. Decaying and crowded freeways, inadequate water storage, and pot-holed streets are the new norm. Once robust gas, oil, mining, and timber industries are nearly inert.
The state’s public schools are dysfunctional. Once premier public universities are spiraling headlong into decline—junking scholastic tests for admissions, using illegal racial quotas to warp admissions, and institutionalizing racialized dorms and graduation ceremonies.
Even if California enjoyed a huge surplus, even if 300,000 residents were not fleeing the state each year, even if California had a history of being a Confederate slave state, even if whites were the majority of the population, even if the black population was greater than its present 5-6 percent, it would be insane for the state to even contemplate racial reparations.
Twenty-seven percent of the state’s residents were born outside of the United States, and have no American ancestors. The state is the most racially diverse in America, and one in which every group could, in theory, lodge complaints against the dead of the past. Mexican-Americans, Armenians, Asians, and the descendants of the impoverished “Okie” diaspora could all cite legacies of bias—but from whom exactly? The long dead?
For those of increasingly mixed heritage—about a quarter of the state—did their own ancestors oppress their own ancestors? Are all blacks sure that eight generations ago their individual ancestors were slaves outside of California, and therefore they have monetary grievances against those in the state whose ancestors eight generations ago might have owned slaves outside of California? And can such writs be documented?
Do we really wish to go down this path of destroying individuality and insisting that superficial appearance damns us to a collective rooted in the past?
If so, are we to tally up the half-century role of racial quotas to calibrate all the impoverished whites of the last 50 years who were discriminated against in admissions and hiring? Have there not been existing reparations from the decades-long implementations of racial preferences and exemptions—or perhaps in some $20 trillion dollars in reparatory transferences during a half-century of Great Society entitlements?
If we are collectives and not individuals anymore, are all of us to be judged by adding up our group’s historical and current pluses and minuses?
If so, do we add or subtract reparatory charges based on group data? If one race is vastly overrepresented in hate crimes or interracial crime statistics, and other groups vastly underrepresented as perpetrators, is it the role of the state now to intervene and provide reparatory and collective “equity” from one collective for the relatives of the victims of another collective?
Are we really convinced that past institutional racial bias is all-determinative of present opportunity? If so, why do Asians nationally as a collective on average earn $20,000 a year more than non-Hispanic whites—despite past exclusionary immigration laws, forced government relocations, and zoning prohibitions? Was there some unknown university study that postulated that the Japanese-internment or early 20th century Yellow Peril exclusionary immigration statutes were irrelevant to Asian-American upward mobility?
Inequality Under the Laws
Ideology now has made a mockery of the cherished traditions of blind justice and equality under the laws. Whether you are arrested, indicted, and convicted increasingly hinges on your politics.
During the 120 days of 2020 riots, looting, arson, and assault that saw $2 billion in damage, 35-40 killed, hundreds of injured police officers, and 14,000 arrests, were there mass detentions, thousands of convictions, and lengthy sentences handed out to Antifa and BLM members for the violence? After all, the insurrectionary rioters staged iconic attacks on the idea of government, whether defined as torching a police precinct or federal courthouse.
Why then were so many protestors of January 6 demonstrations at the Capitol that saw no violent deaths at the hands of another—except a Trump supporter lethally shot for the misdemeanor of entering a broken window of the Capitol—given lengthy prison sentences?
George Floyd—a 6’4”, 223 pound black career violent felon, arrested while suspected of passing counterfeit money, serially high on dangerous drugs, resisting arrest—was choked into unconsciousness while resisting arrest by a reckless white police officer.
Floyd was canonized as an American hero, often portrayed with halo and angelic wings.
The officer was convicted of second-degree murder and is serving combined state and federal prison sentence of over 40 years.
A white Ashli Babbitt, 5’2”, 113 pounds, a 14-year military veteran, and, like Floyd, unarmed, was lethally shot for the crime of entering a broken window in the Capitol by a black policeman.
Postmortem, her life was smeared and slandered, her shooter canonized. Was Babbitt some sinner, Floyd a saint? The choker officer Chauvin a Satan, the lethal shooter cop Byrd godly? The petite Babbitt a mortal danger stopped only by a bullet, the huge and uncooperative Floyd supposedly easy to arrest with no need of force?
Why were the downtowns of Washington, D.C. and Seattle simply hijacked and expropriated by violent groups with impunity, while federal troops were forbidden to assist overtaxed local law enforcement? Was that not in stark contrast to the barbed wire, 20,000 soldiers and barricades that marked Washington for weeks after the Capitol demonstrations?
Why was there not to be a 2020 riot congressional commission to investigate the deaths and destruction caused by groups who crossed state lines to plan and orchestrate the violence, often weaving their conspiracies with the aid of social media?
Nullification
Did we not fight a Civil War to reestablish that states and locales could not ignore federal laws?
Why did 550 local and state jurisdictions, in old Confederate South Carolina style, declare with impunity that federal immigration law did not apply in their territories? Does the Left now believe in such neo-Confederate principles? Would it applaud counties that rendered federal endangered species, or handgun-control statutes null and void in their jurisdictions?
Or do we now declare some nullifications good and others bad, depending on our own politics?
How did the Biden Administration simply suspend all immigration law to greenlight 6-7 million illegal entries across the southern border since January 2021? Did Biden not take an oath to execute our laws faithfully?
Does any president now have the right to order the executive branch not to execute entire bodies of federal law? Will the next president declare entire sections of EPA statutes inert by de facto nonenforcement to appease a particular political base?
At any time, did Joe Biden send a bill to Congress requesting that anyone can now cross U.S. borders without identification and legal sanction?
So do citizens fly into JFK or LAX from foreign countries and simply announce that they either forgot their passports or never obtained them? And as a reward for lack of an ID or legal permission, are they still allowed into the United States and given a free phone, and a free hotel room? Do we have one set of laws for citizens, and another for non-citizens? And if so, why?
Rogue Agencies
How can a former FBI director under oath claim amnesia or ignorance 245 times during congressional testimony, or leak a classified account of a private conversation with a president with complete impunity, as did James Comey?
How can an FBI director, as did Andrew McCabe, lie on four occasions with impunity to federal investigators? Is it now the case that FBI directors at times must lie and deceive as part of their job descriptions?
How can a former FBI director, as in the case of Robert Mueller, with all seriousness deny under oath any knowledge of Fusion GPS or the Steele dossier, whose controversies prompted his own special counsel appointment? Can citizens tell inquisitive IRS auditors that they have no memory of deductions in question?
Why is there still an FBI after it has been confessed that it paid a foreign national, Christopher Steele, to compile dirt against a presidential candidate—and paid his source in Washington to provide Steele with false information to impugn a presidential candidate? How did the FBI manage to play a central role in both the 2016 and 2020 elections in efforts to alter the result?
How can a legitimate FBI knowingly submit such information that it knew was false to a federal judge to spy on an American citizen to further a farcical plot to destroy a presidential campaign?
So what will the FBI not do? Forge documents? Offer in vain $1 million to a foreign national to verify just one fact in a fake, bought dossier used to obtain a FISA warrant? Disappear cell phone data under subpoena?
Have high-ranking officials promise that a presidential candidate will never be elected? Infiltrate Latin-Mass Catholic Church services and school board meetings to monitor the activities of church-goers and parents in attendance?
Use armed performance-art SWAT teams to swoop into private homes to arrest suspects accused of mostly misdemeanors? Hire out social media private companies like Twitter to suppress free expression deemed by the FBI unhelpful or problematic?
Suppress information about an FBI-confiscated Hunter Biden laptop, while keeping mum as former intelligence officers lie absurdly before a national election that the computer in FBI hands was likely the work of Russian disinformationists—to aid a presidential candidate in a debate and harm the incumbent?
Destroy the lives of any whistleblowers who expose such miscreant behavior to Congress?
Printing Money
The journalist/historian Paul Johnson famously once wrote that the tripartite duty of any government leadership was “to ensure external security, internal order and maintenance of an honest currency.”
We certainly do not maintain an honest currency by borrowing 130 percent of annual GDP, with a looming debt of $33 trillion, an annual $1.5 trillion-plus budget deficit, and a 2022 annualized 6.5 percent inflation rate.
But statistics mask the real problem, which is a mentality of suicidal spending passed off as juvenile “modern monetary theory.” Unlimited borrowing as a “theory” is the academic idiocy that some socialist hare-brained professors dreamed up to excuse printing money we do not have.
Both parties have run up the debt. Yet the culpability mounts as each successive president adds to the crushing debt, in fear that on his watch the medicine of restraint will be worse than the disease of insolvency.
Note how casually the federal government burns through billions of dollars. We still have no idea how many billions of dollars in arms and equipment the military shrugged away in Kabul. Who cares anyway whether the terrorist Taliban is becoming one of the largest dispensers of U.S. taxpayers’ weaponry?
Currently, Joe Biden lies that by not spending allotted money he somehow is the greatest deficit hawk in memory, as he rams through a $1.5 trillion 2023 budget deficit.
The top federal income tax rate is 37 percent. In California, to take the example of our largest state, the top state bracket is 13.3 percent. Income subject to federal payroll taxes is 15.3 percent for the self-employed—and income subject to that crushing take is a whopping $160,200.
The above taxes are well aside from capital gains taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and fuel taxes, which, along with income taxes, can easily take 50-60 percent of one’s middle-class income. Note that the government not only does not appreciate the crushing extractions but targets for auditing those who pay at that rate. And all this tax revenue leads to what? Multitrillion-dollar budget deficits and unsustainable national debt.
Adding insult to injury, our current White House occupant, Mr. “Ten-Percent”/ “The Big Guy” Joe Biden demagogues as “greedy” anyone who resents the wastage of federal spending after handing over half his income to the government. Yet did the Bidens report all their past foreign income and pay at that rate? Could Joe have ensured that his son first paid all he owed to the IRS before he smeared other Americans as not paying their fair shares?
A sane country would immediately reboot and update the old Simpson-Bowles reduction and simplification of taxes and spending proposals that would gradually work our way toward a balanced budget—and maybe, in a century, pay off what we have borrowed. But we know that is impossible since we would hear ad nauseam that such fiscal integrity was racist, heartless, and cruel.
So we will keep up borrowing and printing bread-and-circus money until, like the late fourth-century polis, or late imperial Rome, there is finally no money for the upkeep of infrastructure, domestic law and order, and deterrence against foreign enemies.
Then what cannot go on, will not go on and all the absurdities of the present will end with a bang not a whimper.
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Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare.
Photo “United States Capitol” by Andy Feliciotti.
———————————————————————————– Hey he didnt not mention the great weather & lack of humidiy!! Just kidding, so enjoy the decline is all that I can say. That & keep your ammo dry and your stash of food secret! Grumpy, who is behind enemy lines here in the peoples republic of California.