Winter of Discontent II: Biden Boogaloo

If you’re below a certain age, or didn’t keep track of UK politics, you may not remember the Winter of Discontent. In late 1978 and early 1979, the combination of inflation, harsh winter weather, Labour government dysfunction and trade union strikes brought the UK economy to its knees and ordinary citizens to a boiling point. Rail and lorry strikes led to spot shortages, and a haulers strike left mounds of garbage littering London strikes. The end result was an upheavel that would bring Margaret Thatcher to power as prime minister, and the new Tory government would swiftly move to crush the power of the unions to disrupt public order. Labour would not regain power for nearly 18 years.

Now Joe Biden has his own winter of discontent brewing, this one engendered not by unions strikes, but by vaccine-mandate driven supply disruptions, soft on crime policies, and ruinous “green” energy policies.

First, #BareShelvesBiden still seems to be plaguing much of the country:

There appear to be shortages from Boston to Arkansas. (Again, for the record, I’m not seeing such shortages in my neck of Central Texas, where there are bare shelves for only a few items.)

Now a big winter storm has hit the Northeast, which is expected to make everything worse. That region is usually prepared for heavy snow and ice, but that was before vaccine mandates worsened the trucker shortages. Now with record numbers of people quitting their jobs, I suspect both truckers and road maintenance crews are in shorter supply than ever. Plus New England’s reliance on “green energy” and rejection of natural gas pipelines has made everything worse.

One thing that’s making shortages of all goods worse: soft on crime policies in locales with George Soros-backed DAs has encouraged widespread train robbery.

Medical equipment, designer handbags, luggage, throw pillows, airline parts, children’s artwork, even a new wine fridge – all those items and more have been found stolen off Union Pacific trains and discarded alongside the tracks in East LA.

Images of thousands of stolen and discarded packages alongside the Union Pacific train tracks near Union Station have people around the world asking – how does this happen? Apparently, it’s a near perfect storm of an ongoing train robbery problem, the pandemic, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s policy of no-cash bail arrests.

“I have been with Union Pacific for 16 years, and I have never, ever seen this situation to this degree,” said Lupe Valdez, the company’s senior director of public affairs.

Valdez says, on average, 90 of their containers are compromised each day. But between October 2020 and October 2021, train robberies have picked up exponentially by a whopping 356%. Union Pacific has increased its enforcement and patrols, and has put drones to work, but now they are looking into diverting trains so they don’t pass through Los Angeles County at all.

“We are making arrests, but what our officers are seeing on the ground is that people are basically being arrested, there is no bail, they come out the next day and come back to rob our trains,” Valdez said.

Union Pacific’s chief has a meeting with the LAPD next week, and last month, sent a letter to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, calling this a “spiraling crisis” and imploring his office to hold criminals accountable.

“Even with all the arrests made, the no-cash bail policy and extended timeframe for suspects to appear in court is causing re-victimization to UP by these same criminals,” the letter says. “In fact criminals boast to our officers that charges will be pled down to simple trespassing – which bears no serious consequences.”

All of this bodes ill for ordinary Americans who just want to buy groceries, heat their homes, and not have their Amazon orders mysteriously disappear due to repeat offenders put back on the streets by radical Soros-backed social justice warrior DAs.

All these problems (save the weather) are ones democrats have either created or made worse.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 17th, 2022 at 1:27 PM and is filed under Crime, Democrats, Economics, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, unions, video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “Winter of Discontent II: Biden Boogaloo”

  1. 370H55V says:
    January 17, 2022 at 4:21 PM

    Where’s Woodcock and E. H. Harriman when you need them?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxWrMczsNho

    Looks like things haven’t changed for the Union Pacific in 120 years.

  2. Lawrence Person says:
    January 17, 2022 at 5:05 PM

    Forget them. Railroads need to bring back brutal rail bulls like Ernest Borgnine’s Shack from Emperor of the North.

  3. Stop Biden says:
    January 18, 2022 at 7:47 AM

    Don’t forget the 11th commandment: Thou shalt not mention the race of the thieves.

  4. Ann in L.A. says:
    January 18, 2022 at 8:54 AM

    Since thefts under $950 are a slap in the wrist, would these thieves be able to steal more because they’re stealing at the wholesale, not retail, level?

  5. Theo says:
    January 18, 2022 at 1:41 PM

    Ann in L.A. says:
    January 18, 2022 at 8:54 AM

    Since thefts under $950 are a slap in the wrist, would these thieves be able to steal more because they’re stealing at the wholesale, not retail, level?

    Hilarious!
    Gives “I can get it for you wholesale” a new spin.

  6. Lawrence Person says:
    January 18, 2022 at 1:45 PM

    The dollar amounts don’t really matter if the DA refuses to file charges.

  7. RonF says:
    January 19, 2022 at 9:52 AM

    I live near railroad tracks going into Chicago. The rail company has been battling thefts to the point that they have hired a company to put 10′ steel fences (some kind of expanded metal paneling, not just chain link) along the tracks, as well as surveillance cameras.

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