By Bill Dunne

In 1994 the Democrats led by President Bill Clinton implemented a program to fund the addition of 100,00 new police officers on the streets of our cities and towns. How times change.

No normal person needs an explanation of how profoundly stupid and unpopular is the idea of defunding or disbanding our local police forces. Yet that idea has speedily established a foothold in today’s Democratic Party less than five months out from a presidential election they are desperate to win. Does this make sense?

It makes sense if you appreciate how thoroughly the party’s ostensibly “moderate” leadership has lost control to its extreme left wing. Future historians will make careers out of examining how the party got to this point.  One thing they may likely conclude is that allowing an avowed socialist who was not even a member of the party to seek the party’s presidential nomination in 2016 was a watershed event.

Bernie Sanders’ trick, of course, was to tack “democratic” in front of “socialist”. It was BS to anyone who spent five minutes checking his background (honeymooning in the Soviet Union never did become a trend among other Americans for some reason) but it was enough to delude the ill-educated cadres being churned out by our public schools and universities. Together with Marxist academics, fellow travelers in the media, and clueless Hollywood icons, they made a potent combination. 

Yes, the Dem leadership missed it, but why indeed should they have worried? They had Hillary, the smartest woman in the world who was sure to become the first female POTUS.  So they waved Bernie into their nominating process, maybe for giggles if nothing else, only to learn they had an electoral Frankenstein on their hands who had to be taken out by any means necessary.

After the 2016 election disaster (their view) came the mid-term elections of 2018.  It was the cheated Bernie Bros and the heart-broken Democrats burning for revenge who gave us the current state of the party — freshly populated with hard-left zealots at all levels of government, from Congress to state houses to local towns and hamlets. 

As the National Review’s Stanley Kurtz put it, “Whatever face the Democrats present to the world, their woke left fringe is now in charge. That fringe has not only abandoned core American principles like freedom of speech and due process, it has reimagined American history as a story of ‘systemic’ oppression and demanded radical transformation along identitarian–socialist lines.”

Sure enough, as 2019 progressed, it became clear that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was taking orders on key issues instead of giving them, appearances notwithstanding. That’s why we were treated to the impeachment farce, which had followed immediately upon the collapse of the Mueller farce.

Looking now at the defund-the-police mania, one has to wonder: Has their unbridled hatred and fear of the Orange Man brought them to this peak of over-reach, where they lose all touch with the mainstream of American voters and pitch themselves into a decline toward eventual oblivion?  Have they jumped the shark?   Victor Davis Hanson predicted as much a year ago: “What is strange about the new envisioned progressive agendas for 2020 is that no serious Democratic presidential candidate next year could ever run on them.”

Agendas like these:

·         A Green New Deal, key features of which include eliminating the internal combustion engine, the fossil-fuel industry, air travel, and cow farts. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has embraced the GND.

·         Abortion to the level of indifference to infanticide, a position that Ralph Northam, Virginia’s Democratic governor, brought into the light last year.

·         Open borders and abolishing internal immigration enforcement (i.e., ICE). Notwithstanding its temporary eclipse by the COVID pandemic, this one is still very much alive.

·         Providing “free” medical services and other benefits to “undocumented” residents, a bid to turn the entire United States into California.

Each agenda item, whenever publicly broached, looked like political suicide for the party that nurtured it, but strangely enough it seems to have had little effect on overall poll numbers.  Will the idea of defunding/abolishing the police be any different?

Another question is: Are they serious? Maybe not, says Paul Mirengoff writing at the PowerLine blog, “Hardly anyone really wants the police to be defunded or otherwise abolished, and most of those calling for defunding understand that it’s not going to happen. What might well happen, and what the ‘defund’ crowd really seeks, is a severe weakening of the police — a neutering, in effect.”

If that’s the game, we are seeing it play out already, with reports of hundreds or even thousands of seasoned officers around the country putting in for early retirement.  And “the applicant pool for new officers” says Mirengoff, “is likely to shrink and diminish in quality.”

All this may be a prelude to nationalizing the police force. It was none other than then-presidential candidate Barack Obama  who promised in 2008 to create a “Civilian National Security Force”  that would be “just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded as the US Military.” 

In 2015, a year after the Ferguson, Mo., riots over the killing of Michael Brown Jr., President Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, rolled out a proposed list of federal standards to be applied to local police departments. This was never implemented, as it was widely denounced as an attempt to federalize the country’s police forces.  On the Left, however, the impulse to do so remains strong.

Funny thought: How would it be if you had to call an agency in Washington, D.C., to get the cops to work on a burglary in your neighborhood?

Be that as it may, one suspects there’s a limit to the number of sharks the Democrats can jump and still remain a viable national party.

Bill Dunne runs a corporate communications consultancy based in Connecticut.

http://dailytorch.com/2020/06/defund-the-police-how-many-sharks-can-the-democrats-jump/

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Letter: Mainstream Americans know before we can have healing, we must have law and order

Dear President Trump and Members of Congress:

America is founded on the rule of law. Without law, there can be no justice, and there can be no peace or prosperity. The rule of law exists not to control the people, but to empower them; not to impose the will of the State on the people, but to guarantee to all law-abiding citizens an orderly and peaceful framework in which they can exercise their rights. Every day, hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers across the country selflessly place their own lives at risk to uphold the rule of law, better their communities, and protect the most vulnerable. Their brave sacrifice builds safer and more secure communities, and they deserve our respect.

No profession is perfect, and people in every profession will always be flawed. But it is undeniable that the vast majority of law enforcement officers hold themselves to the highest of standards, in recognition of the great trust that the public has placed in them. They know that they wield great power, and they are acutely aware of the devastating consequences to innocent lives, to their communities, and to their profession if they do not meet the standards of character and conduct that are expected of them. And in the rare cases where law enforcement officers abuse their power and undermine the rule of law, such as the unjustified killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, they should be held accountable, as should everyone else in positions of public trust, from elected officials to bureaucrats.

Unfortunately, there are those who would like nothing more than to politicize those rare abuses to sow division, to undermine and destabilize the United States, and to use the coordinated chaos they create to force their agenda on unsuspecting Americans. The radical Left, the Democrats now openly admitting they are “socialists,” and the far-left terrorist groups like Antifa are seeking to do exactly that today. They foment racial division to stoke anti-American sentiment, to misinform, and to instigate and justify violent riots and looting. These are elements of the long-term, well-organized, well-funded strategy of the Marxists who seek to destroy the American way of life, fundamentally transform our system of government and silence, threaten or censor any who speak out for traditional values.

The goals of radical Leftists vary, but they all share extremist qualities and are given cover by the mainstream media: some seek radical ideas like defunding and dismantling the police altogether, while others seek a federal takeover of every State, local, and Tribal law enforcement agency in the country so they can use them to push their radical social agenda and punish their ideological adversaries. In the wake of the tragedy of George Floyd’s unjustified death, it would be easy to forget that all four police officers involved in this tragedy were quickly fired from their jobs and are now facing charges. As well-organized protestors, agitators, and politicians attempt to weaponize George Floyd’s death to demonize law enforcement, President Trump, and conservatives in general, it would be easy to forget that the Minneapolis city council and mayor—along with the district’s congresswoman, both senators, and the Minnesota governor—are Democrats.

The fact is that the far-left radicals burned and looted American cities in the name of a slogan with which virtually nobody disagrees: Of course black lives matter, but an uncontroversial slogan is not the true message of those who seek to use violence and unrest for their own purposes. The fact that the riots, mayhem and killing of innocents by mobs continued, after all four officers involved in George Floyd’s tragic death were charged with crimes, makes clear that this isn’t about George Floyd. As Congresswoman Karen Bass, a California 2

Democrat, recently admitted, what the Left really wants is to “push the envelope as far as [it] can because we have a moment now.”

Make no mistake: What the Left is actually after is the destruction of the American way of life, a life built on the rule of law and individual freedom. They are after control by the State, and seek to destabilize the country to get there. It is ironic that the very people who seek the end of private gun ownership, claiming just weeks ago that only the police need carry weapons, now openly seek to dismantle the police. The very people who attack the idea of our military being used—as it has for hundreds of years—to supplement law enforcement and maintain order and safety during times of escalated violence, also seeks to use government power to crush and bully any who dissent from “woke” culture.

As the Left seeks to dismantle the police and weaponize the plight of vulnerable communities to justify rioting and looting, they ignore that vulnerable communities are the ones most impacted by violent crime and the ones that most need good, well-trained, well-funded law enforcement officers. They ignore that the statistics show that, despite the horrific anecdotes—and they are horrific—passed off as an “epidemic,” the race of a violent crime suspect has no effect on the likelihood that they will be fatally shot by a police officer during a confrontation.1

Of course, calls to dismantle the police aren’t their only tactic. They have enlisted the media—both traditional and social—in their quest to demonize traditional American values, they have taken over the education system to instill their propaganda, and they amplify anti-American sentiment through Hollywood celebrities and large corporations. Anyone who questions the liberal line will face censorship by Silicon Valley, anyone who refuses to be sufficiently “woke” will instead be “cancelled,” and any corporation that does not provide leftist mobs with financial support as penance for perceived sins will be boycotted, defamed or destroyed. Intimidation and mob rule is their means for their ends for America and Americans.

As leaders, we stand with law-abiding, America-loving citizens. Despite what incessant and biased media coverage might indicate, Americans overwhelmingly reject the radical ideas being exposed on the Left. According to a recent Morning Consult poll, for example, 71% of registered voters support the use of the National Guard to supplement local police forces dealing with riots and protests, while only 18% oppose such use.2 Likewise, 58% of registered voters support the use of the military to supplement local police forces, while 30% oppose—of course, you would be forgiven for thinking that wasn’t the case, if you watched the New York Times get rid of its opinion editor and reassign its deputy opinion editor last week following a “woke” meltdown over a single op-ed suggesting that the military could be used to supplement police forces in cities facing violent riots.3

We all agree that we can continue to better our police departments, along with every area of our government, but we reject the radical notion that law enforcement, or this great nation, is inherently and systemically racist or beyond repair. We reject the radical notion that defunding police departments will increase public safety.

But we support the notion of individual responsibility and freedom. We support those who insist that individuals who betray the public trust be held accountable. We recognize that most Americans merely want to get back to working hard, contributing to their communities, and getting along in peace with their neighbors. We support those who, rather than loot or burn, rather than call to destroy the police, instead help clean up their streets and remove the graffiti and destruction wrought by rioters.

In short, as Americans, we reject the insurrectionists’ attempts to destroy and destabilize our great Nation, and we support the selfless law enforcement, brave public leaders, and ordinary Americans who are willing to stand against them.

To view online: https://getliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/FINAL-Ltr-Riots-and-the-rule-of-law-June-15-2020.pdf

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ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured monologue from Foxnews.com, Tucker Carlson calls attention to the world’s newest “country,” the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in downtown Seattle:

Tucker Carlson: World welcomes its newest country -- The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone once known as Seattle

By Tucker Carlson

We're about to bring you what has become unfortunately a nightly update on the descent of our nation into chaos and craziness, a lot of craziness.

For more than two weeks, this is really all we've covered. There's that much going on right now. We can't cover it all in an hour. Almost all of it, as you know, all the news is horrifying.

Vandals are defacing our country. They're destroying our cities, our institutions, our civil society.

They have no right to do any of that. They don't own this country. They did not build it. The rest of us should not allow them to wreck it, but we are allowing them and it's infuriating to watch.

We've definitely been infuriated. Genuinely infuriated. If you've watched the show, you've probably noticed that and we want to apologize for that.

Here's why: The last thing American needs right now is more anger, yet another red face screamer shouting about this or that.

And to the extent, that's been us, we're sorry. We genuinely want to help fix this disaster. So, adding to the sum total of rage does not help.

Going forward, we're going to continue to be as honest as we can. That's our duty. Above all, we try to be honest on the show. Sincerely.

We're also going to work to be calm and amused because, honestly, what's the option right now?

Keep your sense of humor. That's what they tell you when things get really dark. And it's good advice.

Humor brings perspective. All of us could use some perspective right now.

So with that in mind, we want to begin with a geography quiz.

Here it is: How many countries are there on Earth? Last week, there were a total of 195, but if you guessed that, you're wrong, because now there are 196.

Ladies and gentlemen say hello to the latest addition to the global family of nations: the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone formerly known as downtown Seattle.

Here is what just some of the inhabitants are saying: 

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whose city hall?

GROUP: Our City Hall.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whose city hall?

GROUP: Our City Hall. You about to lose your jobs. You about to lose your jobs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Show me what democracy looks like?

GROUP: This is what democracy looks like.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Show me what democracy looks like?

GROUP: This is what democracy looks like.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The point is, in the end, this is our street, it is our station.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whose streets?

GROUP: Our street.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whose streets?

GROUP: Our street.

Well, that looks pretty appealing. But before you jump on Expedia to book a trip with the family to the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, now known, by the way, as "CHAZ," the country's Tourism and Economic Development Department is calling it that.

You should know that there are no beaches in CHAZ. This is a tiny nation. It's smaller than Liechtenstein.

The entire country extends only six city blocks. It was built on land that was formerly owned in part by the Seattle Police Department. But the founders of CHAZ wanted that land. So, they planted a flag and they stole it, just like the Conquistadores.

The first thing they did after they declared nationhood and this was a bit of a surprise given that these modern Conquistadores claim to be progressive ideologues.

But the first thing they did was establish rigid national borders. They built a wall around the place just like Donald Trump once said he would do.

Their wall is made from wooden barricades. A sign at the entrance to the country warns, "You are now leaving the USA."

And then there are armed border guards, not technically ICE agents but close enough -- who question everyone seeking entry.

Countries have borders and the founders of CHAZ understood that. They don't want the place flooded with illegals, and by illegals, we mean the citizens of Seattle. 

POLICE OFFICER: We've been hearing from community members that they have been subjected to barricades set up by the protesters, with some armed individuals running them as checkpoints into the neighborhood.

That's pretty smart. You can't let just anyone into your country, an uncontrolled flood of immigrants would tank the economy and the people of CHAZ know that.

They're not libertarians. They don't work for the Chamber of Commerce. They're not giving you some speech about how immigration makes you richer.

They're realists.

They want to make this work for the sake of their people and they don't have much to work with. What exactly is the economy of CHAZ? It's tough.

With limited natural resources and a population with virtually no skills of any kind, apart from spray painting the F-word on public buildings, they lead the world in that, the people of CHAZ don't have a lot of options for economic development.

So, they've gone with extortion through violence, again, just like the Conquistadores. It's a time tested formula and it's lucrative.

POLICE OFFICER: We have heard anecdotally reports of citizens and businesses being asked to pay a fee to operate within this area. This is the crime of extortion.

Well, like the nation it broke from, its mother nation, the United States, The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone is what political philosophers call a proposition nation.

It's a country based on an idea rather than particular people. The founding idea in CHAZ, its Magna Carta, its Constitution, its raison d'etre is that cops are bad. Very, very bad. The police are bad and should be abolished.

So not surprisingly, CHAZ has banned police from its territory. The shining city of Seattle seems OK with that decision.

I mean, does the government of Italy dictate local policies within the Vatican City? No, of course not. It's autonomous. Same thing here.

What's amazing, though, is that the leaders of CHAZ would like to dictate policies in the City of Seattle and so they're demanding that Seattle get rid of its police force and close all jails and prisons.

At this point, CHAZ has not yet been admitted to the U.N., presumably there's an e-mail headed there now.

But as the Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best explained, the country already has recognition from the Seattle City government.

CHIEF CARMEN BEST, SEATTLE CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT: The decision to board up the precinct -- our precinct, our home, the first precinct I worked in - - was something I had been holding off. You should know, leaving the precinct was not my decision.

You fought for days to protect it. I asked you to stand on that line, day in and day out, to be pelted with projectiles, to be screamed at, threatened and in some cases hurt.

Then to have a change of course, nearly two weeks in, it seems like an insult to you and our community.

Ultimately, the city had other plans for the building and relented to severe public pressure.

Pretty powerful police chief. Pretty, pretty formidable law enforcement leader, I'm sure that people of Seattle feel well protected.

So CHAZ is a nation without leaders. It's a flat system. It's anarchy.

How long can that continue? Probably not very long. Anarchy isn't built to last. In the end, the strong always dominate.

In the weekend, in fact, it's already happening. It took barely a day for the nation of CHAZ to get its first warlord, and it was quite a promotion for him.

Just a week ago, Raz Simone was an up and coming rapper. He was also a super host for Airbnb.

Now, he's a monarch.

In videos taken within CHAZ, Simone is seen patrolling the area with his allies. They have guns.

They're declaring, "We're the police now."

In one clip, the monarch's men assault a citizen of CHAZ for spray painting graffiti inside the zone.

Just like the mafia, CHAZ doesn't put up with nonsense like that in their own neighborhood.

So that's what's happening in Seattle on Thursday night. Not a big deal. A brand new nation within our own borders.

Yes, the last time that happened. It did kick off a Civil War that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and lasted three years. But it's not a huge deal and that may be why Democrats in Congress seemed completely unaware that it's happening.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said nothing about it. Neither has House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff -- and you'd think they kind of have their finger on the pulse of the nation.

The Mayor of Seattle knows about it, obviously, it's happening downtown, but doesn't seem bothered in the slightest.

In fact, in the last few days, the mayor of Seattle, Jenny Durkan, has tweeted in honor of a deceased gay icon in the city. She has bragged about building new housing for the homeless.

But until Thursday night, she didn't even acknowledge the existence of CHAZ. Again, a nation built in her downtown.

The president noticed though. On Wednesday night, he tweeted this: "Take back your city now, if you don't do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly anarchists must be stopped immediately. Move fast."

The mayor of Seattle replied this way, simply saying, "Make us all safe. Go back to your bunker."

A clever social media wordsmith.

There are questions though that are unresolved. For example, what will happen to the American citizens who may have been shopping downtown in Seattle and are now stuck behind the border of CHAZ?

Can we repatriate them? Are they are now prisoners of war?

These are questions of international diplomacy at this stage, but the mayor has not addressed them.

She did say Thursday night that CHAZ is really like a block party and she said she might grant some of their demands, presumably a bilateral treaty is imminent. We'll be bringing you that news when it happens.

The media haven't paid a lot of attention to CHAZ either. They are excited by anything that's new, but not this new country.

It's kind of weird because just a month ago, they were very against demonstrators. The anti-lockdown demonstrators in Michigan, for example, were dangerous zealots.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Really just an ugly -- a dangerous scene at the State Capitol in Michigan.

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Black people's right to protest is secondary to white people's right to be an armed protest with long guns.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC HOST: A bunch of guys camo'ed up, a bunch of guys with long guns.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: These potentially dangerous protests against stay-at-home orders.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: A tiny minority with guns marched into the state capitol in Michigan today to lobby in their raucous way.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: And when it's white people with guns and they're out and they're angry and their faces with cops.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Didn't see any of that.

CUOMO: Everybody is civil.

EDDIE GLAUDE, PROFESSOR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: These folks ended up in the state capitol carrying -- with automatic weapons -- and they were treated with kid gloves.

We said at the top of the show, we're going to try to stay amused. Not after we play those clips and every night, it just -- oh, it makes you red in the face.

How can people that stupid have TV shows?! And be that dishonest.

But let's acknowledge, it is amusing. Because here's the standard. If you protest lockdowns in Michigan with guns but don't commit any violence at all, it is a threat to the nation.

But if you commit beatings and loot and burn down buildings you are, quote, "mostly peaceful."

If you create an armed, independent nation in downtown Seattle, it's amazing. Good call.

The New York Times is on your side. And in fact, just today, "The New York Times" published a piece that described the nation of CHAZ as "A homeland for racial justice."

So we have homelands now, in the middle of our country.

The nation of CHAZ is -- we are again quoting The New York Times here, "An experiment in life without the police, part street festival, part commune."

It has free food and that's what it takes to make everything right. Just get rid of the police.

By the way, how many of the people writing this stuff would go spend a week in CHAZ with their families? Or in CHAD for that matter? Zero.

But that didn't slow ABC down. It described CHAZ as "festive." Basically like Free Tibet, except in this case, the media actually support it because China's on board, too.

We'd love to explore this question more, the press, the Democratic Party have repeatedly condemned protesters who carry weapons simply to make a point with no intention of using them and don't use them. And of course, last winter, we had an entire impeachment charade based on the idea that nobody is above the law.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, D-Calif.: No one is above the law.

REP. VAL DEMINGS, D-Fla.: Nobody is above the law.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES, D-NY: No one is above the law.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, D-Mass.: No one is above the law.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No one is above the law.

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE, D-Texas: No one is above the law.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That no person is above the law.

SEN. CORY BOOKER, D-NJ: Nobody should be above the law.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, D-Calif.: Nobody should be above the law.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-Calif.: No one is above the law.

Got that, America? Stop exercising your rights, the ones you thought were the law and shut up because no one is above the law -- except for Democratic voters, obviously. They're not simply above the law, in fact, they get to make their own laws.

In fact, they can make their own countries if they want. It's all totally cool. Just as long as they vote in November.

To view online: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-world-country-capitol-hill-autonomous-zone-seattle

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