A NATION IN MELTDOWN - 18 of Top 20 Cities with Projected Highest Murder Rates Have Democrat Mayors

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ON BLACK CRIME IN AMERICA!

At Least 49 Shot over Weekend in Mayor Lorri Lightfoot’s Chicago

Scott Olson/Getty

AWR HAWKINS

28 Sep 202054

2:31

At least 49 people were shot, seven fatally, over the weekend in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) Chicago.

Breitbart News reported at least 24 people were shot Friday through Saturday alone in Chicago, and five of those shooting victims succumbed to their wounds.

In addition to the shooting victims, ABC 7 reported a five-year-old girl, Serenity Arrington, was stabbed to death early Saturday morning, allegedly by her mother.

Arrington’s grandfather, Sylvester Washington, struggled to come to grips with her death, talking about how Arrington loved to watch movies with him. He said, “Y’all would have loved her. Sweet little girl. Man. Granddaddy’s little girl.”

By the time Sunday had passed the number of shooting victims had jumped from at least 24 to nearly 50. The Chicag0 Sun-Times reports that 49 were shot, seven fatally. NBC 5 reported the tally of shooting victims stood at 51.

Sunday started with a fatal shooting “in the 1400 block of East 73rd Street” at 12:54 a.m. A 31-year-old man was walking on the sidewalk when someone drove up near him and an occupant in the vehicle opened fire. He was shot twice and transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Another one of Sunday’s fatal shootings involved a 66-year-old man who was standing “in the 6100 block of South Bishop” with a 54-year-old man about 6:43 p.m. The two men heard shots ring out and “felt pain.” The 66-year-old was transported to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the head, and he was pronounced dead.

The Chicago Tribune reported 558 homicides in Chicago January 1, 2020, through September 22, 2020. That is 158 more homicides than were witnessed January 1, 2019, through September 22, 2019.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up for Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange

 

Second Arrest Made in Execution-Style Murder of North Carolina 5-Year-Old

Facebook, Wilson Police Dept.

AWR HAWKINS

24 Sep 20203,150

1:47

Five-year-old Cannon Hinnant, who was killed execution-style on August 9, 2020, was reportedly shot in front of his two siblings.

WSOCTV reports that 25-year-old Darius Sessoms was arrested the day after the shooting and charged with murder. It is believed he allegedly “walked up to Cannon while the boy was playing outside with his siblings and shot him in the head.”

The Blaze reports that the killing occurred in front of “Cannon’s 7-year-old and 8-year-old siblings.”

ABC 11 reports that Sessoms is being held in jail without bond, and that 21-year-old Aolani Takemi Pettit was arrested Tuesday of this week and charged with “felony accessory after the fact.” The Blaze reported that Pettit “allegedly helped Sessoms flee from police before he was taken into custody the day after the shooting.”

Wilson police in North Carolina said Aolani Takemi Marie Pettit, 21, of Wilson, was arrested Tuesday.
https://t.co/byAjIgkcad

— WSOCTV (@wsoctv) September 23, 2020

Cannon’s stepfather, Lee Parker, recalled getting the phone call that Cannon had been killed. He said, “I received the call, man. I was riding down the road, and I just blacked out, couldn’t even think for a few seconds. Took me a minute to register it.”

Parker added, “It’ll never be behind us. He’ll always be with us, but we’re going to get through it.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

Illinois State Coach Leaves Parting Message for BLM Before Quitting

DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP via Getty Images

WARNER TODD HUSTON

27 Sep 20201,193

1:58

Illinois State offensive coordinator Kurt Beathard quit his job Wednesday, over his apparent dislike for the Black Lives Matter movement’s intrusion into the locker room.

On his way out, Beathard admittedly left a note on his office door reading “All Lives Matter to Our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ,” the Pantograph reported.

The coach was reportedly vexed over accusations and finger-pointing about who is responsible for tearing down a Black Lives Matter banner that had been erected in the school’s locker room.

From his comments, it seems that Beathard, the son of four-time Super Bowl Champion Bobby Beathard, may have become a suspect for tearing down the BLM sign. But according to the paper, Beathard strenuously denied he had anything to do with the incident.

“That locker room crap is wrong. I took the sign down somebody put on my door. That’s it,” Beathard told the paper. “I didn’t take anything off that wasn’t put on my door. I wrote the message.”

Beathard’s resignation over the BLM agenda is not the first time the race-centric movement has roiled the Illinois State football program. In September, Redbird Director of Athletics Larry Lyons stirred controversy when he said “all redbird lives matter” in a video conference with the players.

Lyons later apologized and pledged to “listen better” in the future.

“I think we’re going to a good place,” told the media in September. “We’re all trying to reach out and listen better. I need to listen better, and we’re engaging with student-athletes about best ways to move forward. There’s some anger, and I understand that. I wouldn’t want to diminish that. This is important. We’re going to move forward. We’re going to tackle this head-on. Education is a big part of it, and that starts with me.”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.

I8 of Top 20 Cities with Projected Highest Murder Rates Have Democrat Mayors

Scott Olson/Getty Images

AWR HAWKINS

29 Sep 2020904

3:48

A New York Times report based on projections for 2020 shows 18 of the top 20 cities for homicides have Democrat mayors.

Ironically, the Times leans on the Republican exceptions in the list to claim President Donald Trump is wrong for calling out the Democrat Party over violent cities around the country.

Again, 18 of the top 20 cities for the projected highest murder rates are run by Democrats. The projections were drawn from a combination of police department figures and media reports.

Below is a list of the cities, the names/party affiliation of their mayors, and their projected murder rate (PMR):

1. St. Louis — Mayor Lyda Krewson (D) — PMR: 90.4
2. Baltimore — Mayor Bernard Young (D) — PMR: 55.8
3. Detroit — Mayor Mike Duggan (D) — PMR: 47.6
4. New Orleans — Mayor LaToya Cantrell (D) — PMR: 46:4
5. Cleveland — Mayor Frank G. Jackson (D) — PMR: 41:3
6. Kansas City, MO — Mayor Quiton Lucas (D) — PMR: 40.0
7. Cincinnati — Mayor John Cranley (D) — PMR: 33:4
8. Milwaukee — Mayor Tom Barrett (D) — PMR: 31.7
9. Chicago — Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) — PMR: 28.6
10. Atlanta — Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) — PMR: 27.9
11. Philadelphia — Mayor Jim Kinney (D) — PMR: 27.4
12. Washington — Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) — PMR: 27.3
13. Louisville — Mayor Greg Fischer (D) — PMR: 23.0
14. Miami — Mayor Francis X. Suarez (R) — PMR: 22.2
15. Indianapolis — Mayor Joe Hogsett (D) — PMR: 21.9
16. Oakland — Mayor Libby Schaaf (D) — PMR: 21.0
17. Toledo — Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz (D) — PMR: 20.8
18. Tulsa — Mayor G.T. Bynum (R) — PMR: 20.0
19. Minneapolis — Mayor Jacob Frey (D) — PMR: 18.7
20. Greensboro — Mayor Nancy B. Vaughan (D) — PMR: 18.6

The Times also includes a lookback at the ten U.S. cities with the highest murder rates in 2019. All ten had Democrat mayors.

The Times contends, “More cities are run by Democratic mayors than by Republican ones, but murder is rising pretty much everywhere, regardless of a mayor’s political party.”

On June 29, 2020, Breitbart News reported a Washington Post column suggesting Trump was wrong to criticize the violence in Democrat-controlled cities because only 17 of the top 20 most violent cities are run by Democrats.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

Almost All of America’s Failed Cities are Democrat Cities

That includes 42 of the top 43 centers of violent crime.

Thu Sep 3, 2020 

John Perazzo

[John Perazzo is the author of Betrayal: The Democratic Party’s Destruction of America’s Cities and also of the Freedom Center's new investigative report: BLACK LIVES MATTER: Marxist Hate Dressed Up As Racial Justice.]

As Marxist and anarchist radicals continue to turn Democrat-run American cities into war zones, Democrats assure us that they alone understand how the current crisis can be resolved. White House hopeful Joe Biden, for example, vows that “as President,” he “will help lead” a national “conversation” about racial justice, “and more importantly,” he “will listen” to the “anguish” of the long-forgotten “little guy.”[1]

Biden’s “little guy” narrative blends seamlessly with one of the most widely accepted claims in American political discourse today: the notion that the Democratic Party is the party that fights on behalf of the common man. We are told that Democrats in public office advocate for a wide range of policies that would improve the lives of the poorest and most powerless among us.

With regard to crime, for instance, the Democratic Party Platform declares that we need to: end the “mass incarceration” that allegedly targets nonwhite minorities; “invest more in jobs and education” than in jails; eliminate mandatory minimum sentences; “close private prisons and detention centers”; “eliminat[e] the use of cash bail” because “no one should be imprisoned merely for failing to pay fines or fees”; and “abolish the death penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment.”[2]

Regarding economic matters, the official Democratic Party Platform explicitly pledges to promote “shared prosperity” by: “rais[ing] wages for working people,” “ending poverty” in “underserved communities,” and implementing “a comprehensive agenda to invest in America’s cities.”[3]

But in city after city where Democrats already have been in charge politically for an extended period of time, we find exceedingly high—indeed, often colossal—levels of crime and poverty that degrade the quality of life for the people who reside there. And the longer Democrats have dominated the politics of those cities, the worse the conditions tend to be. In short, Democrats have transformed a host of once-great metropolises into urban prisons where the “little guy”—particularly the black and Hispanic “little guy” on whose behalf Democrats typically claim to speak—has been grievously harmed by one destructive Democratic policy after another.

The Most Dangerous Cities in America

Let us first examine the political leadership of the most dangerous American cities, large and small alike. “Danger,” for purposes of this analysis, is defined in terms of the number of violent crimes committed per 1,000 residents. Four categories of violent crime are included in these calculations: homicide, rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. The statistics regarding the incidence of each of these crimes in each city were derived from FBI records and were published in 2019 by the custom analytics website NeighborhoodScout.com.[4]

The following chart shows the 50 cities that have the highest violent crime rates in the United States and: (a) have a population of 25,000 or more; (b) are governed by mayors who are clearly identifiable as either Democrats or Republicans;[5] and (c) have either a “Mayor-Council” (MC) form of government, a “Council-Manager” (CM) form of government, or a Hybrid (HYB) of the two.[6]  Of those 50 cities, 46 are governed by Democratic mayors and administrations; only 4 are governed by Republicans. Moreover, 42 of the top 43 are governed by Democrats.
 

Rank	Cities with Populations of 25,000+	Population[7]	Type of Govt.	Violent Crimes/ 1,000	Mayor’s Party
1	Detroit, MI	672,829	MC	20.0	Democratic
2	Memphis, TN	652,752	MC	19.5	Democratic
3	Birmingham, AL	209,403	MC	19.3	Democratic
4	Baltimore, MD	614,664	MC	18.5	Democratic
5	Flint, MI	97,379	MC	18.3	Democratic
6	St. Louis, MO	318,416	MC	18.2	Democratic
7	Wilmington, DE	71,455	MC	16.3	Democratic
8	Camden, NJ	74,417	MC	16.2	Democratic
9	Pine Bluff, AR	42,984	MC	16.0	Democratic
10	Kansas City, MO	481,360	CM	15.9	Democratic
11	S. Bernardino, CA	HYB	MC	15.3	Democratic
12	Alexandria, LA	47,334	MC	14.6	Democratic
13	Little Rock, AR	198,546	CM	14.6	Democratic
14	Cleveland, OH	385,810	MC	14.5	Democratic
15	Milwaukee, WI	595,070	MC	14.3	Democratic
16	Stockton, CA	307,057	CM	14.2	Democratic
17	Monroe, LA	49,761	MC	14.1	Democratic
18	Chester, PA	34,133	MC	14.0	Democratic
19	Rockford, IL	147,404	MC	14.0	Democratic
20	Albuquerque, NM	559,270	MC	13.7	Democratic
21	Pontiac, MI	59,792	MC	13.4	Democratic
22	Kalamazoo, MI	75,988	CM	13.3	Democratic
23	Anchorage, AK	298,192	HYB	13.1	Democratic
24	Oakland, CA	419,987	HYB	12.9	Democratic
25	Indianapolis, IN	852,506	MC	12.9	Democratic
26	East Point, GA	35,282	MC	12.8	Democratic
27	Compton, CA	97,537	CM	12.1	Democratic
28	Battle Creek, MI	52,347	CM	12.0	Republican
29	East St. Louis, IL	26,662	CM	12.0	Democratic
30	Canton, OH	71,329	MC	11.9	Democratic[8]
31	Elkhart, IN	52,348	MC	11.9	Democratic
32	Newburgh, NY	28,363	CM	11.9	Democratic
33	Riviera Beach, FL	34,674	MC	11.8	Democratic
34	Wichita, KS	389,938	CM	11.8	Democratic
35	Jackson, MI	32,704	CM	11.8	Democratic
36	New Orleans, LA	391,495	MC	11.8	Democratic
37	Trenton, NJ	84,065	MC	11.8	Democratic
38	Jacksonville, AR	28,235	MC	11.7	Democratic
39	Nashville, TN	688,901	MC	11.5	Democratic
40	Lansing, MI	117,400	MC	11.1	Democratic[9]
41	Daytona B., FL	66,649	MC	11.1	Democratic
42	Albany, GA	74,904	MC	10.9	Democratic
43	Harrisburg, PA	49,192	MC	10.8	Democratic
44	Tulsa, OK	401,190	MC	10.7	Republican
45	Beaumont, TX	116,825	CM	10.7	Republican
46	Hartford, CT	123,287	MC	10.7	Democratic
47	Desert Hot Sp, CA	28,878	MC	10.7	Republican
48	Buffalo, NY	255,284	MC	10.6	Democratic
49	Gadsden, AL	35,000	MC	10.5	Democratic
50	Chattanooga, TN	182,799	MC	10.5	Democratic

The Cities with the Highest Poverty Rates

Now let us turn our attention to the political leadership of the large U.S. cities with the highest poverty rates in the nation. These are cities that: (a) have populations of at least 200,000; (b) are governed by mayors who are clearly identifiable as either Democrats or Republicans; and (c) have either a “Mayor-Council” (MC) form of government, a “Council-Manager” (CM) form of government, or a Hybrid (HYB) of the two.[10] Of the 50 cities in this list, 41 have Democratic mayors, and just 9 have Republican mayors.[11]
 

Rank	City & State	Type of Govt.	Poverty Rate	Mayor’s Party
1	Detroit, MI	MC	36.4%	Democratic
2	Cleveland, OH	MC	34.6%	Democratic
3	Buffalo, NY	MC	30.3%	Democratic
4	San Bernardino, CA	HYB	28.4%	Democratic
5	Newark, NJ	MC	28.0%	Democratic
6	Cincinnati, OH	HYB	27.2%	Democratic
7	Fresno, CA	HYB	26.9%	Republican
8	Memphis, TN	MC	26.8%	Democratic
9	Milwaukee, WI	MC	26.6%	Democratic
10	Toledo, OH	MC	25.6%	Democratic
11	Baton Rouge, LA	MC	25.2%	Democratic
12	Philadelphia, PA	MC	24.9%	Democratic
13	New Orleans, LA	MC	24.6%	Democratic
14	Richmond, VA	MC	24.5%	Democratic
15	Miami, FL	HYB	24.3%	Republican
16	St. Louis, MO	MC	24.2%	Democratic
17	Hialeah, FL	MC	23.7%	Republican
18	Tucson, AZ	CM	23.4%	Democratic
19	Baltimore, MD	MC	21.8%	Democratic
20	Atlanta, GA	MC	21.6%	Democratic
21	Pittsburgh, PA	MC	21.4%	Democratic
22	Houston, TX	MC	20.6%	Democratic
23	Dallas, TX	CM	20.5%	Democratic
24	Stockton, CA	CM	20.5%	Democratic
25	Columbus, OH	MC	20.4%	Democratic
26	Boston, MA	MC	20.2%	Democratic
27	Lubbock, TX	CM	20.2%	Republican
28	El Paso, TX	CM	20.0%	Republican
29	Minneapolis, MN	MC	19.9%	Democratic
30	St. Paul, MN	MC	19.9%	Democratic
31	Norfolk, VA	CM	19.7%	Democratic
32	Tulsa, OK	MC	19.7%	Republican
33	Chicago, IL	MC	19.5%	Democratic
34	Tampa, FL	MC	19.5%	Democratic
35	Phoenix, AZ	CM	19.4%	Democratic
36	Los Angeles, CA	MC	19.1%	Democratic
37	New York, NY	MC	18.9%	Democratic
38	Glendale, AZ	CM	18.6%	Republican
39	San Antonio, TX	CM	18.6%	Democratic
40	Bakersfield, CA	CM	18.5%	Republican
41	Greensboro, NC	CM	18.5%	Democratic
42	Jersey City, NJ	MC	18.3%	Democratic
43	Sacramento, CA	CM	18.3%	Democratic
44	Spokane, WA	MC	18.3%	Republican
45	Orlando, FL	MC	18.2%	Democratic
46	Long Beach, CA	CM	18.1%	Democratic
47	Madison, WI	MC	17.9%	Democratic
48	Santa Ana, CA	CM	17.7%	Democratic
49	Albuquerque, NM	MC	17.6%	Democratic
50	Oakland, CA	HYB	17.6%	Democratic

It should be noted that many of the cities in the foregoing charts have been governed by Democrats not just for a short time, but for many years, or even decades, on end. To cite just a few examples: St. Louis has been led exclusively and continuously by Democrats for the past 71 years; Detroit, 58 years; Baltimore, 53 years; Kansas City, 29 years; Wilmington, 47 years; Cleveland, 30 years; Harrisburg, 38 years; Houston, 38 years; Minneapolis, 42 years; Chicago, 89 years; and Milwaukee, 60 years.

Conclusion

The facts are crystal clear, and they are stunning. For decade upon decade, the Democratic Party has fed mountains of rhetoric to its many reliable voting blocs in scores of U.S. cities, assuring them of its deep and abiding concern for the lives of ordinary Americans. Yet it has delivered absolutely nothing in terms of measurable improvements to those lives. Instead, the Party has gradually transformed itself into a political wrecking ball whose only tangible achievement in urban America has been to perpetuate obscene levels of poverty, crime, and human misery. It is a shocking record of wretched failure that can be neither ignored nor wished away.

Why on earth would anyone believe that entrusting Democrats with the reins of governmental power on a national level, as opposed to a city level, would lead to a better result?

It is time for serious-minded individuals who may have long supported the Democratic Party for reasons they deemed worthy and honorable, to finally recognize that their party has failed and betrayed them so consistently and so monstrously, that they now have a moral imperative to walk away from it.

 

NYC’s streets are now too dangerous and too disturbing for normal folks to tolerate. If they’re not being attacked, beset, robbed, or murdered, they’re being disgusted. 

NYC August 2020 Shootings More than Double August 2019

Yana Paskova/Getty Images

AWR HAWKINS

2 Sep 20201,176

1:43

August 2020 shootings in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s (D) New York City were more than double the number witnessed in August 2019.

NBC 4 reports there were 242 shootings in NYC in August 2020 versus 91 in August 2019.

Moreover, the number of murders in NYC in August 2020 was 53 versus 36 during August of last year.

The New York Times reports that since May 2020, NYC has seen “a more than 140 percent increase … [in shootings] over the same period in 2019.” And there were 180 murders between May and August, a “51 percent increase compared to 2019.”

On September 1, 2020, Breitbart News reported that de Blasio’s NYC had surpassed the grim milestone of 1,000 shootings for the year.

The New York Post reported NYPD data indicated there were 1,004 shootings in NYC as of August 30, 2020. There were 537 shootings by that same time in 2019.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

 

New York Had It Coming

By Jon N. Hall

I used to love New York City. There was so much to do and see, but if one were from the heartland like me, one could be perfectly content to just walk the streets and look at architecture and people. One might seek out venues one had seen in the movies, such as in Woody Allen’s Manhattan; perhaps Elaine’s. And when one got weary from walking, one could sit down at one of two, count ‘em, two major opera houses. And after a performance one might grab a beer at that joint across the street from the Met and muse about what a wonderful city one was visiting, where the Bronx is up and the Battery’s down. It really was a helluva town.

I used to love New York City, but there’s not much left to love. In the wake of the riots and vandalism things aren’t so wonderful in the Big Apple anymore. Some have said the city is dead and isn’t coming back. Indeed, on August 13, former hedge-fund manager, author, and bon vivant James Altucher self-published “NYC Is Dead Forever. Here’s Why” at LinkedIn. The article is blocked into several segments, including business, culture, food, commercial real estate, and colleges. It’s a longish article with three charts, but it’s worth your time, as it has insights that might be transferable to other cities:

NYC has never been locked down for five months. Not in any pandemic, war, financial crisis, never. In the middle of the polio epidemic, when little kids (including my mother) were going paralyzed or dying (my mother ended up with a bad leg), NYC didn't go through this.

Thousands of productive New Yorkers have left the City, and Altucher thinks they won’t be coming back. Even so, many are taking their jobs with them. They don’t need to commute to work, as they can telecommunicate to work. That’s because of the huge increases in bandwidth, Altucher tells us. Why ride the subway to work when one can fire up one’s computer and Zoom to work?

Altucher himself held out on moving from his beloved NYC until June, when the riots began. He has kids, and upon seeing videos of rioters trying to break into his building after curfew, Altucher had had enough and decamped for Florida.

Altucher’s article got a lot of buzz. The New York Post reprinted it in its entirety on then ran a counterpoint article by a Manhattan lawyer. At the Blaze, Glenn Beck read Altucher’s entire article on the air; it takes more than 14 minutes (it’s also here). On Fox Business, Maria and Dagen interviewed Altucher, and the first thing he went into was lost tax revenue, deficits, and mass bankruptcies. But here’s the thing, there was already talk of bankruptcy for NYC back in 2019. So although the lockdown was the fatal blow, NYC already had huge problems.

There’s one key word that never appears in Altucher’s article: “Blasio.” (To soften that observation for Italian-Americans, Mayor Bill de Blasio, the chief villain in NYC’s demise, chose his name; his birth surname is “Wilhelm.”)

So, is Altucher guilty of having voted for de Blasio? If he voted to re-elect de Blasio, then Mr. Altucher is responsible, at least in part, for the ruination of his city. Even before his re-election, this writer heard that virtually everybody in NYC “disapproved,” to use a kind word, of the mayor. Yet, he got a second term. Are we talking massive voter fraud here, or is the NYC electorate a bunch of dummies? (Back in 1972, the gal who had the role of Amneris in the production of Aida here in Kansas City was a New Yorker, and she told me that New Yorkers were quicker and smarter than folks in the Midwest. A quick glance at the fools New Yorkers continually re-elect refutes her assertion.)

NYC’s brilliant oh-so-sophisticated residents reflexively vote Democrat. Only when life in the Big City becomes too “unpleasant” will New Yorkers consider voting GOP. They did this in the 1990s when they elected a law-and-order Republican for mayor (Rudy Giuliani) to clean up the messes created by their previous voting mistakes. Rudy leads us to the main reason for NYC’s possible demise: the situation in the streets.

NYC’s streets are now too dangerous and too disturbing for normal folks to tolerate. If they’re not being attacked, beset, robbed, or murdered, they’re being disgusted. The streets are the problem that must be fixed before we can consider a resurrection for NYC. The psychotics, thugs, panhandlers, loiterers, tent campers, muggers, and everyone else making life in the city a trial need to be removed and never tolerated again. New York City was America’s premier metropolis. It should be reserved for “movers and shakers,” ne’er-do-wells should reside elsewhere.

Last year when hoodlums started dousing NYC cops with buckets of water and little was done about it, NYC’s fate was sealed. Giuliani would never have allowed the streets of NYC to descend into the chaos that de Blasio has let happen; Rudy would have stopped it cold. If New York is to be revived, then a new policy of zero tolerance for bad behavior must be instituted. Panhandling, public urination and defecation, nudity, sex in the streets, loitering, malingering, tent encampments, etc. should no longer be tolerated. If New Yorkers aren’t willing to forbid such things, forget about the city coming back.

New Yorkers need to redeem themselves. The destruction of their city wasn’t something that just happened; it’s something that they themselves brought about through decades of bad voting decisions. They need to start voting for decent candidates. Perhaps their whole municipal system of government needs to be scrapped. New York City needs to be reorganized in bankruptcy, receivership, or by some federal overlord. But there should be no federal funds for a bailout.

New Yorkers need to accept responsibility for the destruction of their city. That might start by electing Michelle Caruso-Cabrera to Congress for the 14th district. Yes, she lost to Sandy O in the primary, but she still seems to be on the ballot in the general under the Serve America Movement Party. Unlike Sandy Cortez (another Dem who changed her surname), Michelle is an adult.

If Sandy and the other idiots New Yorkers have sent to Congress are re-elected, then maybe we could sell Manhattan back to the “Indians.”

NOTE: That “joint” across the street from the Metropolitan Opera that I referenced in my first paragraph, well, I forgot the name. So I used Google Maps to find it, and it’s P.J. Clark’s. Fortunately, P.J’s may be surviving. At the top of their website, there’s a link on “What We’re Doing” that explains how they’re handling the lockdown. For a little amusement, you might click on this to go to a Google Maps image of P.J. Clarke’s, and then “twist” left by grabbing the screen (click and hold down your mouse), and then dragging the cursor right for a bit. You’ll be looking down Columbus Ave. going NE. Then put the cursor on the street and click a few times to travel down the street. Stop when you’re even with the white cop car on the left, and then twist left again. You’ll be looking at the Met. If you’ve never done this, you may find it amazing… and fun.

Jon N. Hall of ULTRACON OPINION is a programmer from Kansas City.

Image: Pickpik